


Tracing the Stitches

by fineinthemorning



Series: Forgiving the Ghost [1]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Angst, Bartender Akechi, Best Friends, Child Neglect, Depression, Domestic, Doppelganger, Flashbacks, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Multi, POV Multiple, Post-Canon, Romance, Sexual Content, Unreliable Narrator, Unrequited Love, Vigilantism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-06 18:50:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 43,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17945165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fineinthemorning/pseuds/fineinthemorning
Summary: Trapped in grief over Akechi Goro’s death even four years later, Ren avoids all manner of friends and family outside of obligation. Waiting for someone who will never return, Ren, in his lowest moment, stumbles upon the ghost from his past in a rowdy bar in Shibuya. Despite the living, breathing body now within his grasp, the damage despair inflicted comes crashing down when he finds Akechi in the arms of someone who shares his face. Why had Akechi never returned to him? Who is Kurusu Akira?  What sacrifices must be made to find the answers?Part 1 of 3 of Forgiving the Ghost





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, so, I've been quiet since October because I've been working on this both for NANOWRIMO (which I won for the first time last year!) and for the Persona 5 Big Bang. I hope you can enjoy this! Please check out the amazing artists I collaborated with in the AN at the end. /hearts
> 
> A huge 'thank you' to my fiancee who read and beta'd this fic solely to help me, since the content is not his cup of tea but he did it anyway cause of our mutual squishy feelings. T -T

“Man, it’s already eight. He’s not coming.” Ryuji slouched even further in the booth of Leblanc, an empty plate of curry in front of him. He knew he hadn’t been the only person to ask off work for this, but, ever true to his emotions, he had little problem stressing his disappointment that the man of the hour had failed to arrive.

Ann, who now sported a more practical single ponytail for her long blonde hair, simultaneously leaned into Makoto on her left and reached to her right to scratch at Ryuji’s scalp, “Have more faith in him.” As per usual, even if she herself had trouble staying optimistic, she did her best to comfort the others and keep their spirits high. “He’s got a lot on his plate, right?” Ryuji casually batted her arm away and sat up straight again as she continued, “Maybe he forgot. Did you remind him?” Ann’s blue eyes directed the question to Haru who was sitting at the bar in a chair turned towards them. Of all of them, their former leader spoke to Haru most often if a text a few times a week or a visit once a month counted as _often_.

“Yes,” she nodded, and even in that single gentle word, the rest of the room directed their attention towards her. “ . . . I think Ryuji is right,” she spoke carefully, not out of shyness, but because the level of tact demanded of her had now been the governing force in all of her words, even if they were directed towards those that knew her best, “I don’t know how, but I think he found out we’d all be here.” Haru had entered another world without them and effectively left them all behind, so whenever she stepped back into theirs, they no longer recognized her appearance, mannerisms, and even her opinions.

“Did you say anything that might allude to all of us being here?” Yusuke questioned from across Ryuji. Coming from Yusuke, who had changed little aside from actually somehow gaining a few more centimeters in height, the question wasn’t meant as an accusation but as an open explanation.

“No, but . . . he knows us.”

And, they all understood.

Despite having gone their separate ways, they’d experienced the end of the world together. And, together, they’d saved it from despair. Even though nothing had really been the same since then, it didn’t mean that their bonds had broken or even worn over time. The spirit they’d awakened inside themselves four years ago never left them. In fact, in each of them, they carried what it meant to be a Phantom Thief even now. Ren was the same in that regard, but what made him different from them was that he preferred to do it alone now. Making plans to meet up with him usually ended in disappointment, phone calls were often kept short, and a text message response was practically a godsend.

Makoto sighed first to break the silence before saying, “I don’t know what’s worse: he’s alone on a day like this or he’s alone because he’d prefer that over being with his friends.”

“Mako . . .” Ann buried her face deeper into her girlfriend’s shoulder as if trying to warm her nose. Makoto rubbed Ann’s shoulder in response, trying to rub out a cold that couldn’t be cured. They’d been together two years, so Makoto had adjusted to Ann’s public displays of affection, at least, when they were with their friends. She’d even learned to respond in kind.

Yusuke’s eyes had since traveled to the portrait of his mother on the wall, “I’m inclined to side with Haru and Ryuji.” He looked at his hands outstretched on the table, “He sees each of us so rarely now. Seeing all of us at once could be rather overwhelming.”

“He’s at the shelter.”

They all looked at Futaba, but it was Morgana that asked, “You have his cell bugged?”

Futaba was leaning against the bar beside Haru, who was seated beside her. Now nineteen, she was still technically the baby in the group, but she no longer looked the part. She’d cut her hair short, almost like her mother’s, and she’d taken on a new style that made her look both mature and severe-- stern even. For better or worse, she had gone from thinking she had to depend on others to forcibly change her heart to thinking she could handle literally anything on her own. Dangerous in practice, her new attitude had yet to lead her into anything she couldn't come back from, at least, to their knowledge. “He has Google Location Sharing on for me to see, and I do the same for him. It’s not anything fancy. He’s probably forgotten about it, honestly.” The change had happened her senior year, but only Ren knew the specifics. From what few details they knew, the catalyst for her change involved the betrayal of someone named Kana.

“So he works there this late?” Makoto asked.

“Yeah, he volunteers, and, depending on the need, he sometimes sleeps there, too. He doesn’t tell me much about it,” she tucked her phone into one of the large pockets of her oversized sweater-dress.

“At least he’s not alone,” Yusuke offered.

No one said anything. Despite the comfort that he was in someone’s company, Makoto’s words still rang in their ears.

“How did we get here?” Morgana’s ears drooped, and he moved out of Haru’s lap to the bar. Morgana hadn’t aged a day and looked just as he did the night they’d saved the world, though in cat-form, of course.

“What do you mean?” Ann prompted.

“As separated as we are now . . . even though we are all in the same city.”

“You really should reconcile with him,” Haru’s voice hadn’t risen in volume, but it cut through all of them when she spoke. Morgana had lived with Ren his senior year, but after a fight they'd had his Freshman year in college, he'd left his best friend and now stayed with Futaba or Haru depending.

Morgana became immediately defensive, “I’m not the one being stubborn.”

Haru stared their feline friend down, and the whole room felt suddenly aware that the two of them had likely had this conversation a number of times prior to this. They all felt for the cat on some level; they all understood his frustrations, so it was wrong to think that he'd be somehow more adept and patient than any of them in handling Ren how he was now.

“I was really lookin’ forward to seeing him tonight,” Ryuji, still frowning, cracked his knuckles.

“We all share the same sentiment,” Yusuke’s eyes were on the portrait once more.

“Death really changed him . . . He should--no, no, nevermind. It’s all in the past,” Makoto swallowed her words back down and straightened up in the booth forcing Ann to let go and do the same.

“It’s not the past for him though, is it?” Yusuke reasoned, his eyes pulling away from his mother to look back at his hands.

“No, I guess not,” she admitted slowly.

Dust collected on the shelves of Leblanc. Even though the menu had expanded some, a few of the appliances had been updated, and the front window had been replaced with glass blocks instead  of a single pane, Cafe Leblanc generally remained the same over the years. Ren, at random, unpredictable times, would show up to relieve Sojiro to work a shift and, at times, he would even train Futaba or give her tips on coffee blends and preparation. Even the very walls around them yearned for Ren’s return.

"The reason we're together is to remember Akechi," Yusuke broke the strained silence between them only to tighten the tension around them further.

"But just like last year and the year before that, we're just worrying over Ren instead," Futaba pointed out stoically.

Ann picked up her phone from the table and absently turned it over in her hand to look at the various sticker photos she'd attached to her case. In most of the photos, Makoto smiled brightly at her, but in one photo, just one, the Thieves had all managed to cram into one booth. They'd come together for Futaba's graduation. Had it been seven months since then? "It's like you can't separate the two. Ren doesn't need to take a day to remember Akechi, right? He's always thinking of him. So like, when we think of Ren, we worry about whether he's finally over Akechi yet or not, so we  think of Akechi then, too."

Makoto looked at the photo sticker that Ann wiped with her thumb. "It's like he never died."

"But he did die," Haru murmured.

"Which is something he has never been able to accept," Morgana stood up, tail flicking straight then curled in his irritation.

In a clipped tone Ann reasoned, “Ren’s a functioning adult." Before Morgana could say otherwise, Ann went on, "He’s never going to be the person we knew before, but he’s still a good person, and, like, he still needs us.” Ann set her phone back down on the table and crossed her arms over her chest, warming herself in Makoto’s absence.

“Of course he does!” Morgana insisted.

“Or does he?” Futaba asked, eyes on the floor, “Or is it just us who need him?”

The dust settled in Cafe Leblanc and with her words, the room went cold and still.

 

* * *

 

November usually wasn’t this cold; tonight muggy, January weather he hadn’t prepared for froze him over. His knuckles were white, and when he reached for the stone in front of him, his fist unclenched slowly as his fingers only just remembered they could stretch and reach and touch. And yet, he only touched cold, wet stone, silent memories that blurred at the edges with the decay of an old film reel replaying on a loop projected in the back of his mind.

“You’re not here, but I come every year.” White breath flew from his mouth like a soul leaving a body. “I have nothing to say to you I haven't already said.” He didn't recognize his depression as such any longer; maybe that brought him a little closer to understanding the man dead but never buried that he still reached out to touch even now.

He lit the incense, waited a few minutes, and then walked away, thoughts traveling with each step he took. He replaced the memories with a less transient vision beside him. A smiling young detective walked beside him without leaving footprints in the muddied, wet cement.

Akechi Goro was dead, but that hadn’t been his final resting place. He had died in the obscurity of the Metaverse inside the mind of his sadistic and manipulative father whom he never escaped even after death took him. Or maybe after death. Ren had played out the millions of possibilities in his head of what could have been. On the off chance that any of them were right, he’d act accordingly, sometimes revisiting the detective’s dead social media accounts expecting an update or speaking to thin air in case he were a ghost waiting to be acknowledged. He'd learned not to talk to the delusions, though.

No sign of life. No sign of death. Just nothing.

And that was what Akechi Goro was to Ren now: a nothing that he couldn’t fight, he couldn’t love, he couldn’t get rid of or do without-- a nothing that had swallowed him whole and made his world colorless. Ren looked up from the footprints dirty boots left behind and reminded himself that he was alone.

He hadn't known, back then, that he'd tasted his greatest love. Had he known, he wouldn't have let that flavor fade, cut off suddenly at the source to choke him dry, starve him desperate, and leave him bargaining for a memory.

He could have tried.

He could have said the right words, the ones he'd practiced in a dream every night since then.

He could have fought harder, used every persona at his disposal until the wall had come down and he'd been reunited with him.

He could have shown him before they'd even ended up there; he could have cherished him, he could have loved him, and he could have captured his heart first.

But instead, he walked away. He made a promise, and he walked away.

Hearing a second set of footsteps, he looked behind him to see only gray stone, wet cement, and white smoke.

 

* * *

 

Ren walked up the few steps to the home, which was an old repurposed three-story office building. He greeted a few people in the common area on the first floor before he made his way up the stairs to one of the bedrooms where several bunk beds sat sad and unmade. Over a decade ago, this particular shelter had been the forerunner for a new program, and as such, had received a decent sized grant to fund updated facilities and hire on new staff. Now, the shelter had more troubled children than the staff could afford attention to, and as such, many of the kids ended up victims of a system they'd never asked to be a part of. Some were taken in by unwilling relatives, others were fostered out and returned shortly thereafter, but the most common place they ended up was the streets. Like other societal-shortcomings, much of Japan ignored the needs of the unwanted, but the children here weren't just the undesirables. The children here were seen as the ones that created their own circumstances, written their own tragedies, and therefore, weren't just ignored; they were ostracized.

Ren helped when he could. Being completely volunteer work, he made his own hours, which he was used to, grateful for, and apt to take full advantage of. The permanent staff treated him like one of the family, which is what it felt like after only a few months of being there. He did small things, chores mostly, but when nothing was asked of him, he spent the afternoons tutoring. One of the other staff members called it 'counseling', but he wouldn't begin to see it that way. He was the last person that could provide advice. No, he just listened. Here and there, he might scold, because to these kids, it was part of how they knew adults cared, but for the most part, he listened, he helped them on their homework, and he did odd jobs around the house.

On the second floor were most of the living quarters. The original project had accommodated only boys, and it had stayed mostly the same save for three girls who were sisters that acted to, essentially, keep their brothers there and out of trouble. No one was any younger than Kousuke, who was eight, and no one was older than Masa, who was nineteen.

"Hey, Subaru," Ren ended up in a small, cramped room that had enough space for three sets of bunk beds and, technically, enough space to walk between them. Subaru was lying in his bed sketching into a book that would soon be out of blank pages. Ren recognized him physically as a younger version of himself with hair pitch black and curly accompanied by wide-rimmed glasses. Unlike Ren, however, Subaru actually needed his glasses to see.

"Hey." The sixteen-year-old didn't even look up, but Ren didn't mind. He knew he'd find him here in his bed. People were creatures of habit, and that was Subaru's favorite excuse. His story was long and complicated, but in the two years Ren had been coming here, he had watched Subaru come and go six times, so by this point, Ren knew that Subaru assumed ‘complicated’ was par for the course for someone like him. Ren possessed no evidence to prove otherwise, so he never made efforts to disprove it. Ren wondered if one day, Subaru wouldn't come back, if he would disappear and become nothing like Goro had. There'd be no sign that he was living or dead except for maybe memories he could play from an old film reel projected into the back of his mind.

"Homework?"

Subaru rolled his brown eyes and sighed, sitting up to reach for the backpack at the foot of his bed, "You're the only person who checks. You don't have to check."

"Oh no, I must," Ren smirked, sarcasm ever-present in his voice.

"No, you really don't," Subaru snipped back.

His smirk slipped into a smile, and he held out his hand, patient and waiting.

Subaru let out a huff of air in annoyance and stared him down before sighing in defeat and handing over two papers-- one of a graded math quiz and another of a physics test.

Ren looked them over, leaning against the bedpost as he flipped through the pages, "Okay, that's an improvement." He could remember studying some of the same content in the diner on Center Street while it rained with Morgana beside him in his bag. The cat had always been there to snap him from his reveries and save him from his spiraling thoughts, but he didn't have anyone like that now.

Subaru's hand shot up as he tried grabbing the papers back, but Ren moved them away expertly, his reflexes quick. He had to remain on his toes whenever he visited the home. Months had passed before he'd realized that Goro never followed him inside.

"You missed this last week, but you got it today. But . . . you also got this problem wrong." He lowered the test for Subaru to see and pointed to an incorrect answer, "We went over one just like it last Monday."

Subaru tapped his pencil against the edge of his notebook impatiently, but Ren ignored the frown inscribed on his face.

"Look, your physics teacher lets you do corrections, so we'll work through that later. For now, tell me what's going on." He handed the papers back only for the teen to snatch them from his hands.

"I don't want to talk about it," Subaru grit, putting the papers back in his backpack before shoving the bag into the corner of his bed against the wall.

"That's okay," Ren reached up to rub his own bangs between his fingers, his eyes hidden in the glare of his glasses from the single fluorescent bulb above, "I'll just stand here until you're ready to do corrections then." The other recessed light in the ceiling above them had gone out weeks ago, but he hadn’t replaced the bulb yet. Maybe he could pick one up tomorrow. None of the other staff had mentioned replacing the bulb, and if he got one anyway, it wouldn't hurt anything to have an extra lying around. Maybe he wouldn't have to buy one. Maybe Sojiro had one. He hadn't checked the utilities upstairs in Leblanc in a while, so maybe--

Oh, right, he was supposed to go to Leblanc to meet--

The frustrated groan of an angsty teenager broke his concentration.

Three minutes and a good portion of his eraser later, Subaru finally set aside his sketchbook and spoke, "I have to see my father on Monday. There's another trial hearing."

"That could be difficult." Ren remained neutral. He knew better than to ever insert his own emotions into these kinds of conversations.

"It is. I hate him so much. Even thinking about seeing him makes me angry. He deserves to die. He really does." Subaru wasn't looking at Ren, and his words made it easy to assume that he was instead seeing his father's face and all of the pain he'd put him through.

"Yeah?"

Subaru shook his head, his jaw tight, "He should be in jail. He's going to do someone else like he did me and my mom. I know it."

"Subaru . . ." Ren trailed off. Again, he didn't know what to say especially since part of him wanted to kill Subaru's father, too.

The teen went on, "I have to be there to testify to the abuse, but you know what's going to happen. It's not, like, convenient or whatever for them so they're just gonna send me back to him." Subaru felt no remorse, no sorrow, or even fear.

"You don't know that for sure," Ren tried to at least ease the process.

"I do, though."

To Ren, it sounded like he had fallen somewhere between angry and resigned, but he was wrong; Subaru only felt anger-- through and through.

The once leader of the famed Phantom Thieves admired the teen's bravery, but Ren knew it had been born from necessity, a learned coping mechanism required for the battle that was Subaru's daily life. "You're doing what's right." He couldn't imagine enduring what Subaru had growing up. It hadn't been until his senior year that he'd even realized his own abuse from his parents, but neglect was one thing and violence was something else.

Subaru all but scoffed, "But the right thing doesn't matter, really-- not when you're alone." The teen's anger stilled the air in the room, and brought the conversation to an end.

Ren didn't have an answer anyway. The truth was that he never really did. People would just use him as a soundboard and figure out their problems themselves. He'd never once said anything that helped or saved anyone-- at least, not that he could remember. How had he ever seen himself as a hero? He couldn't even save one kid.

 

* * *

 

After lights out and a depressing conversation with one of the staff members about Subaru's situation, Ren ended up in Shibuya, nostalgia carrying him there through its streets and through its bars into the early hours of the morning.

 

**Are you coming?**

 

Haru had texted first. He purposefully didn't look at the time stamp. She probably knew him best; he didn't feel like reflecting on himself at the moment.

 

**We waited for you.**

 

He could hear the spite in Futaba’s voice along with all of the things that the text didn’t say.

He fucked up. He fucked up everything involving his friends, but he had especially fucked up with Futaba.

 

**Hey man guess you figured it out but it kinda sucked. Thought I was gonna see you tonight hit me up ok**

 

He wondered if Ryuji had figured it out, or if it was one of the others? He knew they were all going to be waiting for him at Leblanc, but it wasn't the number of people that mattered. The intent they harbored, even if it had been just one of them, equated to enough of a reason not to go. They wanted to talk to him about Goro, and that was the one subject he had no interest in discussing with anyone. They'd just tell him things he already knew or that he'd already tried. Conversations with the people who said they understood just felt exhausting and repetitive. They smothered him with good intentions to the point that he felt more free to breathe without them around.

 

**We love you.**

 

Ann always managed to stick pins and needles in his resolve. He could hear Makoto telling her not to send those three words only for her to insist to the point of tears before clicking the green button on her screen.

  


Yusuke didn't send a message, and that told Ren that he understood on some level, and if he didn't, he trusted Yusuke enough to be patient and forgiving to the last. He admired Yusuke; he'd always admired Yusuke.

 

Ren's eyes finally peeled away from his phone to piece together the reality that he'd ended up in some bar he'd never walked into before. He knew enough about his alcohol tolerance to tell that he'd already surpassed it; that was how irresponsible he could be with drinking-- cruel joke really, since he still worked at Crossroads on occasion and could mix pretty much anything at this point. Ren simultaneously existed both as a bartender and as a college student who almost never drank. So it goes . . .

The place he'd found himself in blared catchy dance music far noisier than Crossroads had ever been. There were people dancing in corners, clicks of regulars flirting with bartenders, and several small parties gathered around standing tables. The whole place sparkled with laughter and lights, and when Ren found himself at the end of the bar, he couldn't even place what he was doing there. Did he think drinking would help him forget? Was he searching for a mistake? Maybe he missed fear. The smiling detective in the corner of his eye that disappeared whenever he tried to face him just no longer frightened him anymore.

He watched two men whisper to each other at one of the standing tables, hands traveling to places unseen as they laughed and stole kisses from one another.

Shamelessly, Ren imagined Goro. Would they have ended up like that at some point? Would Goro let him kiss him like that in public? Would he allow himself to be so exposed emotionally? He imagined the knowing smile they'd share, the feel of his warm skin beneath his fingertips, and the way eyes would flutter shut just as he leaned in to--

“Hey, gorgeous," one of the bartenders leaned over across the bar, and before Ren could react, the stranger gave him a peck on the cheek before falling back behind the bar on his heels with a smile.

Ren stared, stunned entirely, not by the action of the person before him, but the image. Long, golden brown hair tied back in a high ponytail, wide claret eyes, and a smile from his sweetest nightmare: the bartender looked so much like-- nothing. No one.

Akechi Goro was dead.

"You're beautiful," had been Ren's first words. Even if the person in front of him wasn't Akechi Goro, he spoke just as magnetically, appeared just as brilliant. The stranger wore a smile that could steal all the light from a room to use for itself casting shadows on everything that stood in view of its splendor. Too much time had passed.

"Hahaha, looking at me like we just met?" the stranger had to shout over the music, "Is this the game we're playing now?" He ran a hand through his bangs, pulling them away from his forehead briefly revealing the subtle golds and browns of eye shadow he wore before they fell right back in place.

"What?" Ren couldn't even blink.

The man rolled his eyes, still smiling all the while, "Okay, pretty boy, what can I get for you tonight?"

Without any forethought, Ren leaned in across the bar so he wouldn't have to shout, and the bartender met him halfway. "Your number."

The bartender pulled away, a genuine grin on his face, "Wow, you don't waste any time, do you? You thought that'd actually work?" he quirked an eyebrow, and Ren could swear time didn't exist at all. When he didn't answer, the bartender burst into laughter once more.

The nostalgic melody bounced around inside Ren's brain and followed all the way to his heart. He couldn't control the spread of his own lips, wide behind glasses, so certain of the familiarity only for his logic to kick in to the chorus of his friends' voices over the years.

_'Let him go.'_

_'It's time to move on.'_

_'He's dead.'_

The bartender's voice broke his thoughts, "Order a drink, have fun, but show me that you're thinking only of me. If you never let your eyes stray, I'll consider your request." He winked, and Ren wondered if he actually were dreaming. Maybe he'd fallen asleep on the couch on the third floor of the home? It wouldn't have been the first time. This Akechi lookalike would have a bullet in his head any second now, right? A shadow would sprout from the ground and Ren would just watch as it sliced the lookalike's body into bloody, red ribbons?

"Lemon chuhai," he said.

The bartender reached for the vodka.

"With shochu," Ren insisted.

Emotions crossed the bartender's pretty face in a wave: surprise, confusion, and then, finally, genuine delight, "Showing good taste tonight?"

". . . Thanks." Ren didn't understand the comment. The bartender's words made him think he knew him, but Ren felt sure they'd never met before. He would have remembered meeting someone who looked exactly like the ethereal nothing that followed him more closely than his own shadow.

"Just doing my job, Romeo." Clearly showing off, he slid the drink over to him, and moved on to a couple that appeared beside Ren.

The wave of the crowd carried Ren throughout the bar, but not once did his eyes leave the bartender that reminded him of nothing at all.

 

* * *

 

"You're still here?" The recessed lighting of the club flickered on and the last few regulars trickled out. Ren, alone beside an empty drink, waited at one of the standing tables. He couldn't recall how many times a new drink appeared in front of him, but he had counted the number of kisses the bartender had blown him with each one so . . . three?

The flirtations had been cute, but the attention from such a hauntingly familiar face was what had left him in awe. It had also left him second-guessing the reality of alcohol poisoning, but being scared about something felt better than being complacent with being stalked by a ghost.

The bartender crossed the distance between them to stand opposite of him at the table, "What? Is there something on my face?" he self-consciously brushed his bangs out of his face in an attempt to address the flaw in his appearance.

"No," Ren finally found his words again, "you just remind me of someone," he admitted honestly.

The bartender rolled his eyes again, and Ren couldn't understand why. "Okay, okay, I appreciate the effort."

What he did notice was that no one had eyes like that. Was the bartender wearing contacts? Did it even matter? Even the loyal apparition in the corner of his vision didn't have eyes quite so deep or so bright.

"You're perfect."

A blush flooded the bartender's cheeks and he laughed from the embarrassment, "Wow, hahah, later, ok?"

Again, Ren lacked understanding of the bartender's wording. So much could be inferred from them, but those hopes were just lies he'd struggled with off and on for years. Now was not the time. Instead, he made sure to commit the melody of his laughter to memory. "So my reward? Your number?"

The bartender produced a folded napkin from his jeans pocket and pushed it across the table to Ren. "I'm only playing along because you were so good tonight. Every time I looked up, your eyes were on me." He smirked again, his eyes implicating them both in a crime neither planned.

Ren parted his lips and swallowed before voicing a quiet, "Thank you."

Yet again, the bartender laughed, blushing slightly as he enjoyed himself likely at Ren's expense. "Oookay, are you going to make it home?"

Red nodded, trying now to memorize the subtle dimples in the stranger's cheeks that appeared only when he laughed. Did Goro have dimples like that? Had Goro ever laughed like that? He couldn't even remember now.

The bartender shook his head, causing his hair to dance around his face, "The first train will be running in about an hour or you can call a cab."

"Thank you. I'm okay."

The brunette moved around the table, leaning in a single, fluid motion to kiss Ren for the second time that night, but this time, Ren reflexively moved away, taking a step back to create distance between them. He wasn't sure if he'd done it because he had sobered up some or because he didn't normally receive kisses from strangers or because he was just scared. Much to Ren's relief, it only caused the bartender to laugh a final time, an adoring smile on his lips, "Wow, you're being shy, too?" he turned away and made it halfway toward the bar before shooing him away, "Go home, Romeo. We have to clean up."

"Yeah," and with that, he left.

 

* * *

 

Four hours later, he woke up in a sweat, his arms reaching out desperately in a fit to grab for-- nothing.

A dream. Only a dream.

Ren fell back into the pillow, exhausted, his head falling flat through to the bed. Either someone had hit him over the head with a frying pan square on his forehead, he had a sinus headache, or it was a . . . hangover.

"Fuck." What had Lala told him to do for a hangover? What had he even done last night? He'd gone to check on the boys, then to Shibuya for a drink, and then--

"Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit."

He dove for the pants on his floor and dug through the shallow pockets in a fever, his head pounding harder as his heart pumped adrenaline in light of the emergency.

He'd seen someone last night, someone who looked and sounded just like--

“Yes!” he pulled the folded napkin form his jeans pocket. He smoothed out the edges of the napkin and laid it flat on the attic floor, kneeling over it as he struggled to read the scribble written in black marker.

 

_Wow, Romeo. You call that an anniversary?_

 

A number bled through the layers of the thin paper but was still legible enough. What caused Ren's heart to stop was the name below it.

 

_Goro_

 

Building. Building. Building. An unnameable emotion poured inside him, filling him up beyond his body's limits. He fell beside the napkin, his back against the cold wood as he held the square message to the morning light above him. Starting with a tightness in his jaw, he stared at the name, then beyond it at the ceiling, until finally, he saw nothing as the emotion took hold of the muscles in his face and scratched behind his eyes until they welled with tears. If he blinked, he'd break. If he blinked, it would be real.

But, isn't that what he wanted?

His neck. His shoulders. His back. The emotion continued to push at the edges of his bones and past the smooth boundaries of his skin. Still seeing only the planks of the coffee shop attic's ceiling, he fought to grab at the reality he'd been met with today. His fingers stretched, locked, and, in an instant, his arms and legs went rigid.

Goro was alive.

He blinked, and everything spilled over, his emotions, his tears, and every bit of his disbelief. He sobbed loudly as the planks curved and twisted before they blurred away entirely and all he could see was that smile, those claret eyes laughing at him.

"Goro, you're alive," he told the ceiling, fresh tears falling. "You're alive."

He laughed and tasted salt in his mouth as he sat up and leaned over against his bed to catch his breath, the tears falling so freely he couldn't manage to keep his cheeks dry despite soaking his sleeves.

Breathing for the first time in years, feeling again for the first time since that life-altering Christmas, a heart-beat-- recognition that he was alive and that he had a life to live and now he could finally feel whole again, finally be himself with Goro beside him.

"Goro, you're alive. You're alive."

The happiness he'd been starving for over the last four years hit him suddenly, and he identified it finally in a last sob that made his ribs hurt and his throat dry and his eyes sting.

Ren wrapped his arms around himself and rocked silently on the floor, doing his best to calm himself down. He felt happy but crazy, clear-headed in purpose but insane in intent.

Goro was alive, and now he could live.

He could start his life again.

He could be okay again.

He could pick up where he'd left off with the someone he'd never forgotten.

 

**Hey, Goro. This is Ren. Can we meet today?**

 

* * *

 

 **BishoujoKaito:** It was good to see everyone today. Mona wanted me to say so, but I do feel the same.

 **CaptainKitto:** next time we should just find him and make him hand out with us

 **CaptainKitto:** hang

 **Queen:** that might not be the best idea if he isn’t ready.

 **BishoujoKaito:** Mona says that we’re past that, and that he agrees we should have just gotten him

 **CloverGirl:** when was the las time he visited u

 **BishoujoKaito:** Two weeks ago? He studied for most of it. We talked about current events and the company, but he revealed nothing personal. We almost never discuss personal matters anymore.

 **Queen:** we understand. He’s always been a brick wall.

 **CloverGirl:** like a warm brick wall though like a wall made out of pillows

 **4theaesthetic:** a new art installation? A wall made from pillows?

 **Queen:** We’re discussing how Ren has always been kind to us by helping with our problems, but we never get to return the favor.

 **4theaesthetic:** Ah. That makes sense.

 **CaptainKitto:** i’m so lost i think we just need to be there for him more i mean what if he like just disappears on us one day

 **BishoujoKaito:** He wouldn’t, but I understand where you’re coming from.

 **Queen:** Let’s try reaching out to him more, then.

 **4theaesthetic:** we should go in turns so as not to overwhelm him as we likely did tonight.

 **CloverGirl:** yeah let’s do it

 **HoneyGG:** Good luck.

 **CaptainKitto:** was that supposed to mean? are you not gonna help

 **BishoujoKaito:** She doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to.

 **HoneyGG:** whoa there white knight, nah. It’s ok I just don’t have the energy  
  
**HoneyGG:** if I learn anything or if we end up hanging out anyway i’ll say something

 **CloverGirl:** Thank you, Futaba!

 **4theaesthetic:** ✧*｡٩(ˊᗜˋ*)و✧*｡

 **HoneyGG:** . . . Inari you make me proud

 **CloverGirl:** You’ve taught him well.

 **HoneyGG:** hahaha night  
  
**HoneyGG:** {zzz}°°°( -_-)>c[_]

 **Queen:** Is that coffee?  
  
**4theaesthetic:** oh, I see the cup.  
  
**4theaesthetic:** And you are thinking of sleep? It seems contradictory.

 **HoneyGG:** i do what i want


	2. Chapter 2

After just finishing a shower, Goro sat on the edge of the bed with a towel in his hair and another around his waist. The city had woken up by now, but he'd soon be turning in. Wringing his hair dry, Goro watched his boyfriend sleep soundlessly with their blue comforter up to his chin to keep warm. The brunette smiled at the recollection of his boyfriend’s antics the previous night. Every time Goro could spare a moment to look in his direction, his boyfriend, who’d been wearing glasses as part of his half-hearted disguise, would be staring right back at him, a small smile playing on his lips. Goro walked over to the bathroom to hang the towel he’d used to dry his hair and came back out to raid the closet. He’d never seen that hoodie on his boyfriend before. The turtleneck beneath it looked more promising, really, but even still, it was rare that he’d go clothes shopping without Goro. Half-hearted or not, he’d made any kind of effort at all, and, however strange it may have been, it still made Goro feel special, which had to have been the point.

After all, yesterday was a very important anniversary for them.

Unable to find the hoodie, Goro became distracted with tidying up around the room, picking up laundry off the floor and and putting general odds and ends back in their place; the hairbrush went in the bathroom, the keys on the hook by the door, the phone into its charging dock on the window sill, and the gun into the top drawer of the dresser. Goro sighed, turning up the heat a tick instead of actually changing into clothes.

They'd been fighting so much recently-- mostly about work. Well, ‘work’ was the excuse his boyfriend used every time to justify his behavior, anyway, but they both knew he wouldn’t be able to fall back on it much longer. Some much larger issue was keeping him from Goro; some scar from long ago kept them apart.

Goro had admitted to his own feelings of neglect, which hadn’t been easy, and he'd assumed that last night was just his boyfriend's way of trying to make things better between them-- give Goro a little of what he wanted. It made Goro feel hopeful in a time where he’d been second-guessing a lot of things.

Last night felt like starting over almost. He was less vulnerable, at least.  They'd been together four years. If they didn't start over now, he felt like it would all just end, and neither of them wanted that. They didn’t know who they were without each other. Deciding he’d talk to him about it, Goro sat on the edge of the bed beside his lover and shook him only enough to wake him.

"Hey, wake up, Aki."

Gray eyes opened briefly before shutting promptly, and a tired, annoyed groan filled the space between them, "What did I tell you about the curtains, Goro?"

Goro watched him struggle, bringing an arm over his eyes as if the late morning light were so bad that he couldn't even escape it with his eyes closed. In a rushed breath, every expectation flew from Goro, and as his expression hardened, he stood up and yanked the curtains of their bedroom closed. The sweet taste last night had left in his mouth disappeared and left him biting his bottom lip from the bitterness.

"They're closed, Akira," Goro crossed his arms, refusing to sit back down on the bed. Last night had been so thrilling, feeling Akira's eyes on him all night as he worked. It reminded him of when they'd first met and Akira couldn't look away, never leaving his presence for more than a mere few minutes at a time-- always attentive, always sweet and affectionate. Akira was never like that now. His affection only came through in lust, and he was only attentive to Goro when he was upset. Goro had to practically set fires to even get Akira to look his way.

"Why'd you wake me up? You know I had work last night." Akira, leaving his grumpiness unfiltered, slowly sat up against the wall, keeping the covers up to his chin and rolling his neck in a stretch.

Goro narrowed his eyes as he watched him. What was the point? At a loss, he scoffed, "Look, I played along last night, but not now. It was corny but sweet. It got me hot, but we talked about this before--"

"Wait, what about last night?" Akira leaned forward, winced briefly, but recovered so his eyes could study Goro intently. 

The brunette liked being studied by his boyfriend; he loved feeling the other’s eyes attempt to bore into him to see every ugly and beautiful truth about him. But, Akira’s tone told him this wasn’t about that. Goro felt like he was being accused.

"Last night at work," Goro paused to add up all of the facts.

Akira didn’t know what he was talking about.

The beautiful stranger from last night didn’t have his number.

They looked identical.

Wearing masks, fraud, and lies were what Akira did best; it was his job. Had he wanted to look different to Goro, he wouldn’t have merely put on a new hoodie and a pair of glasses.

But, was it possible for two people to look so alike? Taking a gamble, he lied to his boyfriend without a flinch of his poker face, "You left a card."

"I didn't leave you a card, Goro," Goro watched Akira look at the bed sheets, exasperated. His whole demeanor had gone from tense to relaxed at the digestion of Goro's words. Akira's stiff shoulders shrank down in a relief Goro didn't understand but did take note of. Decidedly part of his act, or so Goro determined, Akira began stretching his arms in his typical morning routine while still somehow under the blankets. His disgruntled expression had cleared to a mere impassive line, and Goro choked back disappointment from it. Even if Akira was angry with him, Goro still enjoyed being the single person to compromise his attention.

Goro snorted and continued the farce, his scarlet eyes narrowing to set the trap, "Right . . . okay," he stoked the embers before the flames died, "My fans at the bar show me more affection than you do." He knew he was picking a fight, but he had more than one reason to do so, and that was enough justification for him.

"Someone got you a card?" Akira couldn't be bothered. He didn't even sound jealous yet, which only made Goro try harder to fan the flames.

"A secret admirer, I guess?" Goro laughed spitefully, the acting coming as naturally to him as air in his lungs, "And to think I thought you'd actually done something nice for me on the anniversary of the day we met. You do realize it's been four years-- yesterday."

"Fuck." Equal parts anger and remorse, Akira dropped his arms to the bed and let his head fall back against the wall hard.

In a twisted way, and Goro did recognize that it was twisted, Goro felt satisfied. There had never been a card, but there had apparently been someone else. That was the point. Had Akira remembered, there wouldn’t have been room for anyone else to even enter the picture. Voice cold, Goro spoke evenly, "The gift on the table was untouched, too." What he'd gotten for Akira had been small, but even the card had remained unopened, "I guess you were too fucking consumed with your work to notice."

Goro watched as Akira closed his eyes and dramatically leaned his head back to become one with the wall, "I'm sorry. I was just so tired last night. I must have--"

In a velvet dismissal, Goro ended the argument there, "We talked about this." Goro tossed his second towel on the bed and began to get dressed.

"Goro, . . . " he felt Akira watch him move around the room to put on clothes, take items from the closet, and from the small dresser. He listened to Akira struggle and stumble over excuses like a drunkard in mud, "I just . .  I forgot. And I-- I just, well-- I'm sorry. I really am. I--"

"It's fine." Goro cut him off, "I'm just . . . tired of . . . all of this." Goro walked back into the bathroom to put away the towels and do his makeup, slamming the door behind him to emphasize his disappointment. He would have felt guilty for lying about the stranger he met and the nonexistent letter he never received if it weren't for the fact that Akira had forgotten the day they'd met, that he'd ignored his attempts to keep them together, that Goro had to anger him just to get his full, undivided attention. They'd been together ever since the day they'd met those four years ago.

Maybe starting over wasn't the answer, at least, not with him.

 

* * *

 

Akira stood outside the steps of Tae Takemi's clinic. Of course she hadn't gone anywhere in four years; she loved the residents of Yongenjaya too much. He could still remember the setting sun on the last day they'd spoken. She'd always been too proud to show her emotions, but that afternoon, she'd let him in to glimpse that behind the fishnet, black nail polish, and spiked collar, she was just a woman who wanted to heal those in pain. He was banking on her empathy today, that was for sure. He'd already run a hundred different scenarios in his head on how this little clinic visit could go, but if he remembered Tae correctly, probably none of those scenarios would pass and she would blindside him with something that would leave him stiff and dazed until the pain of his fate wore away.

Taking shallow breaths as he willed himself up the stairs, he winced from the pain in his side and put his left palm over his injury. Maybe he could just leave it there and look like a model posing on the runway everywhere he went.

He imagined Goro flipping his hair and smiled.

The door chimed electronically when he entered, which had to be new, because he would have remembered something so small. It wasn't the only difference. The discounts were different, better, actually, and the posters, the fliers, the names, even Tae herself had been given time to change in four years.

Their eyes met, and he couldn't look away, taking in who she was now as the memories flooded his mind.

He missed her. She'd been more than just a beneficial social link, though, looking back now, each of his confidants felt that way.

Akira pretty much lived the common expression ' _ you don't know what you have until it's gone _ '.

Back to Tae, her hair was longer by a handful of centimeters, but she still looked not a day over thirty, her face smooth and free from wrinkles, her eyes smokey but warm when they met his.

Akira narrowed his eyes and his vision blurred as he concentrated on her only briefly. He blinked, and she sat up, her heels clacking loudly as they hit the tiled floor. She set her book aside on the front desk, stood up, and gave him a look that made him want to both die in a fire and wrap her in a hug-- both of which were terrible options.

He watched the doctor quirk an eyebrow, her lips in a thin line before stretching in one direction into a mischievous smile, “Welcome back, guinea pig. Go inside. I’ll need to see the extent of your injuries.”

Akira, distracted from the pain by the thrill of seeing her again after all of this time, nodded and hobbled to the back where he began to slowly peel his jacket and then his shirt from the bloodied bandages wrapped around his waist and hips.

So far, so good. He hadn't even needed to speak before she offered to treat him. Perhaps it was more unsettling, however, that she had only needed a few seconds of a once over with her eyes to figure out he was injured. Either way, he wasn't terribly surprised to see that they had yet to forge any kind of social link. He was half expecting to see a reverse arcana at this point. It was best that he saw nothing at all.

Akira pulled out his phone and flipped the camera to examine his face and visible skin. He looked good, and he had been able to fool Goro this morning, so he wasn't sure why fooling Tae was already this difficult. Well, okay, but Goro wasn't a doctor. He turned off the camera on his phone and dropped it on the nostalgic hospital bed.

When she came back in, she locked the door, which immediately set alarms off in Akira’s mind. She turned around, her eyes on him, cold but somehow playful, and she walked over to her stool, sat down, and crossed her legs. “Take off the bandages like I've shown you.” She picked up a clipboard and removed a pen from the pocket of her lab coat to tap it twice against metal. Tae had literally never shown him that, so he instead did what he knew, hoping whatever it was, it was correct, and there wasn't some special trick that she'd taught the other guy. He hissed as he unwrapped the bloodied bandages, even moving his left arm across his chest making him wince in pain. When he was done, only a patch, soaked through with blood, remained on his left side. He didn’t move, waiting for her to go on, but her dark eyes continued to study him a long moment before she clicked the pen open and gave a smirk Akira had once known as her typical smile, “I will treat you," she peered up again from her clipboard and leaned over, looking at his face, his chest, and his stomach, ". . . but I know you’re not him.”

A rush of air he didn’t know he was holding left his lungs, “Thank you?”

“Are you human, at least? I need to know that if I’m going to treat you.”

“How open-minded of you, doctor. In fact, on the last Buzzfeed quiz I took, I got the Assertive Croissant. I also identify as a very opinionated pastry.”

She raised an eyebrow and waited.

“Yes, I’m human,” he swallowed.

Goro had gotten the Decisive Cannoli, but Akira kept that to himself.

“I thought the days of the Phantom Thieves were over.” She set her clipboard aside and put on a pair of rubber gloves before she began to peel back the large patch he'd placed over his injury.

“They are," he hissed when the cloth stuck to the wound and she made no effort in being careful to lessen the pain, "at least, as far as I know.”

“Long lost twin?” She gathered the bandages and patch and threw them away, sliding her chair back in front of him and meeting his eyes with her lips in a line.

She was worried. He felt a pang of satisfaction that squeezed tightly around his heart.

“That would be easier to swallow . . . though not as easy to swallow as those Takemedics.”

She pushed him down gently until he was lying on the bed with his head where feet would typically go.

"No? I could kill for one of those right now." The atmosphere began to thicken with her silence.

"I mean, not literally, of course; thief's honor," he winked.

She sighed in exasperation, gathering a few familiar tools to clean his wound, “Whoever you are, you’re just as idiotic as he is, but twice as annoying. You should have sought medical attention about twelve hours ago. You're going to need stitches. These butterfly clips aren’t going to cut it.”

He commented unnecessarily as he stared at the ceiling that dredged up memories of numb pain and pins and needles headaches, “Genius as always, Tae.”

“Takemi-sensei to you, --” her voice cut sharply.

He knew he was taking a risk in coming to Takemi, but out of all of them, perhaps she was the safest choice. “Akira Kurusu.” He'd plea patient confidentiality or something.

“Kurusu-kun," she finished, applying a generous amount of alcohol to his wound that caused him to hiss in pain. When he subconsciously pulled away, she carefully righted him again, turning him on his side so that she could see the extent of the wound.

His eyes stung with pain and he tried not to cry. Settling his voice, he continued his desperate attempt to fight the silence, “I don’t get a cute nickname?”

“That would imply I have any affection for you at all.”

“Ouch. I hope you have medication for that burn.”

“The number of bruises and scars on your body tells me that your occupation allows for these sorts of mishaps quite often. From the looks of things, this is clearly a knife wound." He felt a cool, gloved finger trace scar tissue on his back and the breath of death chilled him.

“Not at all, doctor; I’m a mere bank teller and a voluntary librarian. I tripped in the kitchen while cutting vegetables.”

That same finger traced down his side and slipped inside his wound. He jerked in pain.

“Ouch,” he complained, knowing full well that the sadist doctor had done it on purpose.

“You're funny, Kurusu-kun," she replied in a cold voice that somehow never stopped sounding seductive.

"But you're not laughing?" He heard her get up, open cabinets and drawers, fish for items, and lay things out on her metallic cart.

"I'd be upset if anything happened to my guinea pig as a result of your antics." He listened as she sat back down again.

He finally turned from the wall only just enough to look back at her, "Oh trust me, we live in two different worlds."

She gave him a look that momentarily stopped his heart, a curved needle with a thin wire hanging from it in her hand and a mean set of tweezers in the other, "I'm going to stitch you up, you're going to rest a few hours, I'll send you home with some medicine, and then I'll expect to never see you in Yongenjaya again."

He'd never actually been threatened by Tae before. He frowned as he turned, staring at the wall, refusing to say another word. He didn't like this new memory. Maybe he shouldn't have come. Maybe he should have been honest this morning and told Goro what happened.

Maybe he wished he could take back the things that he'd lost.

 

* * *

 

During an afternoon when the sun chased the clouds and wind chilled the air in one's lungs, Goro adjusted the baggy, wide-necked cream sweater he'd gotten recently at the first signs of winter's chill. Beneath it he wore a sax blue turtleneck to add some color and made sure his socks matched. He always took great pains to perfect his appearance, though if asked, he'd be unable to say why. Particularly self-conscious, Goro often reflected on his own behavior, his preferences, and reasoning behind the decisions he made. He'd been doing so all day.

He shouldn't have gone so far with Akira this morning.

He shouldn't have so readily agreed to meet the stranger he'd met at work, especially after mistakenly flirting with him.

He shouldn't have spent so much time in front of a mirror that afternoon as if he were readying himself for a first date.

Because, that's not what this was.

It wasn't.

He just happened to meet someone who looked strikingly similar to Akira in a city of over nine million people. It could happen, right?

He exited Shibuya station and walked the short distance in the direction of Hachiko. Even before he arrived, he recognized the same curly black head of hair he was so familiar with. Before approaching, he stood back behind some tourists, watching Mr. Lookalike play with his phone. Several seconds passed before he realized that the guy wasn't tapping or swiping or anything on his phone, but his eyes were glued to it, his head down as he leaned against the fence behind the benches that surrounded the statue.

Weird.

Goro let his eyes travel over the rest of him, noticing immediately that his style had much improved from last night. His jeans looked more expensive, and the black cardigan draped his hips loosely. He wore the same turtleneck from the looks of it, which was an item of clothing Akira never wore but Goro had a weakness for, and his wide-rimmed glasses still sat at his nose.

Deciding he may be caught staring if he didn’t approach, Goro walked close enough to him that he was in ear-shot, waving a hand as he offered a warm, “Hello!”

Mr. Lookalike put away his phone suddenly, charcoal gray eyes following up to hold Goro's scarlet ones firmly in place, locking his gaze.

They had to be identical twins.

Goro sucked in air between his teeth in shock.

Not only did they look identical, but their looks were identical, too. Goro knew this look. He'd seen it so many times before, though he couldn't recall the last time he'd received it from Akira.

Mr. Lookalike had frozen in complete awe. Goro's eyes widened, exposing himself further.

Neither of them moved, neither of them blinked, and neither of them even breathed as they looked inside each other.

He knew this person-- not as Akira but as a dream. He'd seen him before in a room that smelled of coffee and felt like home. He was--

“Goro . . . “

His name pulled him from the spell, and both of them tore their eyes away. Goro would not be vulnerable, especially around a stranger, so he put on his best smile and introduced himself, "Soumei Goro. Pleased to meet you." His head tilted slightly as he gave a mock, two-fingered salute, laying on the flirtations more than he meant to but deciding not to hold back now.

The man in front of him spread his lips into a small, shy smile, still clearly enchanted in Goro's presence, “. . . Nice to meet you? I’m Amamiya Ren.”

The name itself took Goro nowhere. Perhaps the only lead he'd have were his eyes, but, aside from the coffee scented dreams, those only took him back to Akira.

"So, I've never heard of this theater before?"

The small, shy smile on Mr. Lookalike wouldn't fade, "Yeah, yeah, it's really small, but it shows a lot of independent films and documentaries."

"Lead the way."

They walked together, side-by-side, making a right past Shibuya 109 and walking uphill to a short building where only the second floor, which was comprised of only three rooms, acted as a makeshift theater. Cute and homey, the gallery space, accented with scented air and plants in the genkan, had been transformed into a two room theater. On the walls of the hallways were movie posters for films that Goro had never heard of before. To be fair, most of them were foreign, but that fact didn’t keep Goro from subconsciously questioning if he was cultured enough to even be there. After Amamiya handed over some paper tickets to a lady in an apron, they were each handed small programs and asked to take off their shoes. Goro had never been to anything like this before, and it was equal parts annoying, intimidating, and thrilling. He loved anything that sparked his curiosity, but he had no idea that he would have ended up here after meeting his boyfriend's lookalike just over twelve hours ago.

The door opened, and Goro couldn’t hide the surprise in his face. There was a projector widescreen on one wall and scattered about all over the floor were legless chairs, bean bags, rugs and pillows.

What. The actual. Fuck.

And that’s when everyone who was already in the room started greeting them.

“Hello, Amamiya-kun!”

“Hey, long time no see.”

“Welcome back.”

Five minutes later, Goro had been greeted by more than a dozen people, they’d gotten pretty much the best two literal floor seats in the house, and someone had handed him a bowl of popcorn quite possibly meant for six people.

“Are you okay?”

Goro turned to look at Amamiya so he could complain because he totally hadn’t signed up for whatever this was, but his words died in his throat. The other’s eyebrows were upturned, his smokey eyes soft and concerned, with his head tilted toward Goro as if relinquishing fully his power over the situation.

Goro was supposed to have complained, maybe excused himself from the situation altogether, but instead, all he could do was stare back. Akira never looked at him like that. Amamiya looked so sweet, so kind, and he was being so careful with Goro in a way that Akira often struggled with.

“It’s fine.”

But Amamiya didn’t let it go, “I know the setup is atypical, but I’ve never come here and seen something I didn’t like. It isn’t very well known, and you said to surprise you.” Goro didn’t understand how someone could sound simultaneously thoughtful and cheeky all while looking completely angelic.

And, to be fair, that much was true. Goro had texted a simple ‘ _ surprise me _ ’ that morning when Amamiya asked to meet up with him.

Goro released a breath he didn't know he was holding and cracked a smile, “Oh, I’m surprised. A movie wouldn’t have been my first choice, but this is interesting.” He handed Ren the bowl of popcorn and looked at the flier to read a bit about the film. With Amamiya’s face, it was impossible not to make comparisons, but Akira would probably never watch something like this. Maybe he would, if Goro asked him to make time for it, but yeah- no- Nope.

This would be a new experience.

Someone entered the room to dim and raise the lights a few times. Everyone quieted down, and the host asked that everyone turn off their cellphones and enjoy the show.

Amamiya smiled at him one last time before the room went dark and the film began. As it played, Goro focused on the screen but could only see that final smile before the lights had gone out.

By the end of the film Goro could recall little of it, but he had taken a liking to the presence of the man beside him-- one that couldn’t be tied back to Akira. One that was uniquely his own.

After the film, they’d ended up in Yoyogi park. After sitting for so long, it took little convincing from Amamiya to persuade Goro to join him on a walk. The sun was just dipping low beneath the horizon when they reached the edge of the park. Their conversations had remained light with Goro doing most of the talking, which was nice, because sometimes he couldn't get Akira to shut up. Amamiya listened quietly, his eyes on Goro every time Goro looked at him. As someone who loved attention, the walk in the cold afternoon air felt warm and uplifting.

When Amamiya stopped walking, Goro turned around to face him. “What is it?”

“Look up,” he said softly, a knowing grin that made his eyes sparkle spread across his face.

Goro gave him a skeptical look before obliging, tilting his head back to stare up at the now darkened sky. And that’s when it spread, starting from the ground and moving up, along branches and reaching out into the sky- the whole of Goro’s vision flooded with a sea of blue lights. The air itself appeared to fog thick with the heavy, blue aura, casting their path sapphire. Goro's mouth dropped in awe, his eyes taking everything in before falling back to his company. “An illumination? Wow, it’s so-- talk about good timing!” he laughed playfully, remembering himself.

He wasn't supposed to be this impressed; this little meetup wasn't supposed to stir anything in the pit of his stomach let alone his heart.

Amamiya walked closer to him, clearly pleased, but still shy, “I really didn’t expect for it to go this well. It must have been fate.”

“Really now?” Goro rolled his eyes, saying nothing when the other man took his hands.

“This is the first night,” Amamiya's eyes hid behind the reflection that played across his glasses.

“Oh?” Goro couldn't see anything but blue.

“Do you like it?”

Goro felt his cheeks begin to warm, “You insisted on a walk so that you could bring me here? You . . . you planned this.” He suddenly realized his hands were in his and he pulled them away without any effort.

“Surprise?” Amamiya tilted his head up enough so that the glare escaped his glasses and their eyes could meet.

There it was again: complete awe. This beautiful stranger bewitched him with his eyes to leave him under a spell, desperate to make the moment last forever and inspire an addiction to this one gaze, this wonder, this--

“I have a boyfriend.”

Goro watched the magician take a step back to break the spell. He looked away, sucked in a breath through his mouth in surprise, digested the information, and relaxed with an exhale, “Okay.”

Goro couldn't help but be impressed.

“I mislead you,” Goro admitted, looking only slightly regretful.

“Yeah," Amamiya nodded, but smiled again, the same all-knowing shyness that hinted at some larger plan, "but that’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

“Really?” That couldn't be right. Goro couldn't accept that as an answer. The guy had just looked at him like he was his whole world, like he was all that mattered, like he was his life, his future, his--

Amamiya couldn’t hold back a wider smile. “I’d like us to be more than friends. I’ve always--” he stopped himself, “ . . . wanted to be with someone like you.”

Goro laughed, blushing in embarrassment because it sounded so genuine, and from how Amamiya had looked at him, he couldn't believe otherwise if he tried. “Well, then. Haha, I didn’t expect that.”

“It doesn’t matter, though.”

“What’s that?”

“As long as I can be beside you.”

The blush on Goro’s face spread. “Anyway," he tried to recover quickly, "to explain the note I gave you, you look a lot like my current boyfriend, and I just . . . made a mistake. Sorry about that. Don’t go around thinking I just kiss every pretty boy that walks up to my bar.”

Amamiya actually chuckled and it made Goro do a double take. “To be honest, I can’t even imagine it.”

“Good.” Goro didn't know why, but he didn't ask.

They began to walk back down the street, side-by-side in the same manner they'd walked up it. Now, however, the glow of warm, blue lights, lighted the path that would lead them inevitably back to Shibuya station.

They'd made it out of the park when Amamiya brought it up again, “He looks so much like me that you still thought I was him? Even with the house lights on?”

“Yes . . . but you do look very plain.” There were plenty of young Japanese men with curly black hair, anyway but--

Amamiya interrupted his thoughts with a fit of laughter, “Plain and pretty at the same time?”

“Exactly.” Goro didn't know how an insult was funny, but he let it slide.

“As long as you think so,” Amamiya replied boldly.

Goro blushed again and watched the other man rub at his own cheeks as if he were cold and not covering a similar shade of red. It just wasn't possible, was it, that two people look so alike?

“You’re a natural flirt, aren’t you?” Goro accused. Akira was the same, except he was awkward in a dorky way, not a shy way.

Amamiya looked straight ahead, putting his hands in the pockets of his baggy cardigan. “I have a natural way with people, but I don’t kiss every pretty boy who shows up to my bar, either.”

“Your bar?” Goro stopped walking to look at him, much to the annoyance of a busy commuter who nearly bumped into him.

They moved closer to the railing along the street, and Amamiya clarified, working the lighting of the street to his full advantage. Goro wondered if he was aware the blue had given him a halo. “I work at a bar in Shinjuku some nights,” he replied casually.

Goro blinked. He didn't understand how someone so shy could do what he did, but perhaps it was a very different kind of bar. His curiosity spiked as he erupted with a demanding, “Invite me!”

“Hahah, wow, okay. Ake-" and then he sneezed suddenly, "Soumei-kun, sorry, excuse me.”

Goro didn't understand the forced sneeze. He'd probably mull over it for an hour after they parted ways, "What is the name of it?"

"Crossroads."

And then it hit him, “Wow, listen to me. I’m practically begging you to take me on a date.”

“You mean a second one?” Amamiya actually smirked behind his glasses before pushing off the bar of the railing and heading back down the sidewalk towards the station.

Goro followed after him, “You’re shameless.”

Amamiya looked up to him, face serious, “If I say anything that ever makes you uncomfortable, tell me, okay? I don’t want-- just--”

The sudden shift caused Goro to laugh openly, “Pftt-haha, you needn’t worry about that. I’ll definitely tell you.” Who did he think he was? Goro smiled at the thought of him holding back on anything regarding his emotions. Absolutely not. Nine times out of ten, he was a force of nature. He hated having to hold back anything for the sake of others if it were possible. That didn't mean he didn't care about the opinions of others; he definitely did, but he wasn't going to put himself through hell on someone else's behalf.

“Awesome.”

Goro felt something grip at his heart, and he bit his bottom lip hard before shaking his head and dismissing the feeling with a smile, “You’re a weird one Amamiya Ren, but surprising, too. It’s fun.”

“I could be wrong, but you sound like you need more fun in your life.”

Goro thought of the argument he'd had with Akira that morning and how pleasant everything had been since he'd received the text from Amamiya.

“Do I ever.”

 

* * *

 

“Ren?” He recognized the voice, so he looked up, both dreading and hoping to see someone’s eyes he hadn’t met in over four years.

He didn’t recognize her. Save for the glasses and the boots, nothing about her looked the same. Even the violets of her eyes had faded dark as hollowed plums. He felt bile rise in his throat, but he fought it back down. Besides, it wasn't his fault. What had become of Sakura Futaba wasn't his fault.

How old would Futaba be now? Nineteen? “Oh, hey,” he greeted flatly, expertly maintaining an apathetic act. That was how that other guy was typically: boring and oblivious to all of the pain he caused to those around him?

“Are you coming in?” She put her hand on the door to Leblanc and Akira nearly bolted right there. What the fuck had he been thinking? After leaving Tae’s, he’d meant to only walk by Leblanc just for nostalgia’s sake, just a quick walk down the alley into the the spiraling mess of bars to come out the other side on his way to the station. Now he was staring at a Futaba that he couldn’t even recognize but had desperately wanted to meet. Akira knew she wouldn’t be the same, but, after all of this time, it no longer mattered.

“No, no, actually, I was gonna go for a walk.” He did his best to act nonchalant and not at all in shock or pain. Thank god or Tae or whoever for those damn Takemedics. Frantically piecing together what he might say had he known her all this time, he choked out stupidly, “. . . Wanna come?” And now, he was just making things worse. Great. Today would be the end, wouldn't it? First Tae and now Futaba. If he stuck around any longer, Sojiro was sure to walk out and then he'd just end up in a mess of tears and pleas for coffee dad to take him back.

Wow. He really shouldn't be doing this.

“On a walk with you? Around Yongenjaya?” Futaba looked skeptical, but with more surprise than dismay.

“To the park nearby?” If he remembered correctly, there was one about ten minutes away with a creek, artsy old playground, and some fields, though, with his luck, it was now an eight story apartment building toting luxury appliances and every amenity just a fifteen minute walk from the station.

“You mean the concrete playground?” she verified, her suspicion only rising.

“That bad of an idea?” Akira remained collected despite being convinced all of Yongenjaya could hear his heart racing. There’d be no reason for her to assume he was anyone other than the other guy who looked like him. To her knowledge, ‘Kurusu Akira’ didn’t exist.

“No,” she insisted first, “Yes,” she corrected suddenly. Then, with a wave of her hands in front of her and an expression that stirred ghosts inside Akira’s mind, she gushed, “I mean, no it isn’t a bad idea, and yes, I’ll come with you. You’ve just been acting weird lately. It’s throwing me off. And you’re not wearing your glasses?”

He’d embrace her if he thought it wouldn’t just make things worse. She did look different, but inside, she was still the same Futaba, right? “Sorry . . . there’s just a lot going on right now. And, I forgot them.” He knew already that he could easily get away with that lie. The person she knew that shared his face didn’t need glasses any more than he did.

Futaba looked hard at him, “There’s always ‘ _ a lot going on _ ’ with you.” Her accusation wasn’t playful, not quite, and Akira hadn’t seen that coming.

He knew little about the person who shared his face. It was necessary for his own well-being to be aware of the places that he frequented, the places he worked, and the confidants he kept in touch with. Aside from that, he didn’t care about his well-being, how he treated the other Thieves or even how he managed to fuck up all of his relationships practically beyond repair. Not his business.

“Let’s talk about you instead,” Akira offered, leading the way in the direction of the park.

“What about me?” she asked, walking beside him.

He noted that she was still short but had gotten taller. He couldn’t tease her the same way he once had, or maybe he could, and it would be twice as annoying to her. He’d have to try it out. “Did you do something different with your hair?”

“Um, no.” She replied flatly, texting a quick message on her phone and then tucking the device in the pocket of her jeans.

“Oh, maybe it was the headband.” The accessory in question was pink and matched the text on her over-sized sweatshirt that read ‘ _ milk _ ’. She waved it off, and Akira took note that she was constantly stealing glances in his direction as well.

“ . . . . Ren, is Yusuke gay?” they had just crossed into the cement lot that was half of the park. In front of them, a rainbow colored prison was meant to be both a jungle gym for children and a colorful art piece.

Akira rubbed at his bangs, following her towards strange cement hills meant for climbing but really just looked like poor construction attempting to look sculptural. “Gay? Yusuke? Maybe?" He had not seen that question coming from a mile away. Back then, Futaba seemed to just know everything. How did she just not automatically already know this? "We never talked about it." He shrugged, "Maybe he’s asexual?”

“He’s not asexual,” she dismissed.

Akira tried to lighten the mood, “Oh, well, I don’t know. Is artsexual a thing?” That sounded more accurate, though it would still be unfair. The guy never had a hard-on for art, at least, not in Akira's presence. “Wait, why are you asking?”

“I kissed him the other day, and nothing happened,” she said as if recounting an ad she'd seen on the train that had been too far-fetched to be effective.  _ Aliens traveled from outer space to try this new face cream! _ Sure. Right.

“You what?!” Akira hadn't meant to respond like that, and he immediately regretted upsetting the stitches in his side. She had what with who? Futaba? Oh god, he just realized he'd never seen Futaba as anything more than a child until this very moment. What the fuck was wrong with him? She was nineteen now. Nineteen.

Shit.

“Wow, okay, overreact much?" she practically scolded him for his dramatics, "I kissed him, and when it was over, he just got his shit together and left which was awkward cause we were like, in his dorm.”

“You kissed Yusuke?” Akira clarified, watching her under the yellow park light. “You like Yusuke. Like, like-like him?” That was totally a fair question. Like-like was a thing.

She blinked back at him, skeptical of his wording or his behavior or maybe both. He couldn't tell. “Maybe? He’s the safest option for me right now and to be honest, a girl’s got needs.”

“Futaba . . ." Akira struggled for words. He couldn't very well ask her if something was wrong with her, could he? Some Assertive Croissant he was. "Did something happen? I mean, other than this?”

Futaba rolled her eyes, “Ren, you’re acting like you’ve been absent from my life for four years. Oh wait,  _ you have. _ ”

He didn’t deserve another sick burn.

“I’m  . . . so sorry.” And everything changed. Suddenly, he very much cared. He cared what that other guy did to the people he cared about or what he didn't do or how he fucked things up. What the hell was wrong with him? Didn't  he realize what he had? Didn't he understand that he had everything? He--

“I’m just mad about yesterday-- the anniversary. Everyone was there. We all waited until last train. You would know how crazy hard it is to get everyone together in the same place if you ever tried to hang out with us.”

Akira put two-and-two together and replied mechanically, “I wasn’t there . . . and I’m sorry for it.” This wasn't his job but fuck all if he wasn't going to at least try to make things right not for the other guy, no, but for Futaba.

“This is it. Four years? Is this just who you are now?” She asked.

Akira had never heard that tone of voice from Futaba before. He'd never seen the expression on her face-- fifteen or nineteen or whatever. Whatever had put it there, whoever made her feel this way, she didn't deserve it.

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugged it off, her palms up as she made a show of just how pathetic his helplessness was. She continued the conversation, “I visited Yusuke because he wanted my opinion on a piece he’s working on.”

Knowing he was supposed to take the bait, he asked, “What of?”

“A portrait of you .. . “

“O--”

“And Akechi.”

“Oh . . .” Wow. He hadn't seen that coming, either. This is why he'd avoided this for so many years, right? He hadn't heard that name in a while. Goro never brought it up, and so neither did he. Akira honestly preferred that. He'd be content to never hear that name again.

When he said nothing else, she asked, “How were the kids?”

“Hm?” What the hell did that mean?

“At the shelter?” she clarified.

Right, the person he was playing as at the moment volunteered at a boy’s home. That was a thing. “Oh, they’re as good as they can be, I guess.” Akira himself had a number of feelings about the subject, but now wasn’t the time; he’d just give himself away. “Tell me about the others,” he sat down on the cement hill and she remained standing under the yellow light.

He could tell that Futaba understood exactly what he was asking, but she very maturely answered, “Talk to them yourself.”

“Fuutaaabaaahh--” he whined dramatically, no longer caring if it was out of character.

“Brat," she cut him off, "They’re fine. Except maybe Haru and Mona. They seem really lonely.”

“And you," he pointed out, watching her carefully from where he sat, "You seem lonely, too.”

Unexpectedly, she burst out laughing, “You’re too much tonight.”

“How so?”

“Like, suddenly you care?”

“Damn, you're not pulling any punches tonight, are you?" Wow, he wasn’t this much of a masochist. He’d signed up for a leisurely walk in the park not an ass-kicking.

She looked at him pointedly, and he replied, no longer knowing if he was speaking on the other guy's behalf or his own, "I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”

“Understatement of the millennia,” she responded dryly.

“Who hurt you, girl?"

She looked back at him, her expression confused, amused, and altogether baffled.

That had been the wrong thing to say, clearly. Whoops.

He took a deep breath and released it, "I can never make up for them, but can I just try to--?”

“I never realized," she cut him off and gave him a look daring him to interrupt her back. When he didn't, she continued, "I never realized how selfish you were until it was all over. After he died and we killed a god-- only then did I realize how incredibly egocentric you are. Like, I get that you were the leader and everything, but it’s like you were convinced you were the protagonist in your own video game.”

Akira hadn't felt this small in a very long time. He hated, absolutely  _ hated _ talking about himself. If things were going to end up this way, he wouldn’t have invited her to go on a walk. No, maybe he would have. It was just all so damn confusing. Whether she was talking to him or the other guy, it felt like they’d equally fucked up. “I’ve been such a piece of shit,” he said slowly.

She didn't say anything for a while, still under the light, and just as Akira was about to kill the silence with some lame joke slash meme reference, she murmured quietly, “Yeah, but you’re here now.”

“It’s not like it’ll never happen again,” he promised, and again, didn't know who he was in that moment.

“Yeah," she nodded, looking sad and unsure of her next words but bravely speaking them anyway, " . . . can we, actually? I mean, meet up like this again? Next week? Same time?”

Absolutely not.

“ . . . Sure.”

This was for Futaba; this was 100% for Futaba.

“Cool," she replied, smiling at him.

“Cool,” he smiled back, trying not to cry, shake her, hug her, and scream incoherently that he could do better, that he was better, that she didn't deserve Amamiya Ren and that he could be the brother she apparently didn't have. 

She laughed, and he felt sick again. An extra Takemedic after this couldn't hurt.

“I’ll walk you home?” he offered his hand.

“Sure,” and she took it, holding onto it tightly the way she had four years ago before the world they knew disappeared in a sea of red.

 

* * *

 

“Honey, I’m home,” Akira greeted as he entered the apartment he’d shared with Goro for four years now. The main room doubled as their living space, where they watched tv, played games, and ate their meals. and Akira’s workspace where he essentially ran an illegal forgery operation. On top of the desk, against the right side of the balcony window, was his printer and laptop, but beneath it, Goro had at one point cleverly organized his papers, inks, and various small machines that  he used for his forgery services into a set of drawers. Passports, driver’s licenses, insurance papers, visas-- pretty much anything could be forged and duplicated with what he had at his desk. And, with a little help from his sixth sense, he’d become recognized, at least by name, as the best in Tokyo. His reputation kept the bills paid, and since he was so good at what he did, he could vett his customers first. Goro, especially, appreciated that a grade of moral quality could be attributed to someone before Akira essentially incriminated himself as an accomplice to the customer’s crime. Over the years, that aspect of his life had ironed out, but habits die hard, and he’d ended up with a few other additional jobs along the way. He hadn’t been lying to Tae about the bank or library, but those really just operated as means to an end for his other endeavors. 

No, for a while, he and Goro had another job they shared, one that, now, had gotten so dangerous that he’d pushed Goro away and ended up with a knife in his side. He still wasn’t sure which was worse. On the one hand, he seemed to do nothing but elicit screams, and not the good kind, from Goro whenever they spent more than five minutes together. On the other hand, well, pain and stitches and sadistic, nostalgic doctors?

Their relationship had become strained, and this morning had been just another example, just another mistake on top of the mountain of mistakes he’d made lately. There’d be an avalanche any day now, and Akira wasn’t sure he’d be the one to survive the fall.

He loved Goro, but-- he didn’t know how to stop.

He couldn’t stop.

And he . . . couldn’t explain that to Goro, not really.

As Goro was now, he’d never understand.

Akira kicked off his shoes and left the medicine on the table only to notice that the gift and the card were still sitting there, untouched. Wow, he was such a shitty boyfriend. Granted, he’d been bleeding from an open wound in his side all morning, but still. Damn. Better late than never? Akira ripped open the pink envelope with the elegance of an otaku with a blind box and read the short message on the card.

 

_ It’s been four years, and I’m still happy you’re the first person I see when I wake up in the morning. _

 

_ Still Gay For You, _

 

_ Goro _

 

Fuck. Akira put the card back on the table and palmed at his eyes to keep the tears from falling. His nose itched and his forehead began to pound. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and released it slowly before sniffling only once, rubbing at his nose, and reaching for the box.

In the last twenty four hours he'd accumulated enough guilt to power his own palace.

He treated the gift with far more care than he had the envelope, a renewed sense of duty apparent in the delicate way he untied the ribbon, opened the box, and unfolded the tissue paper. His eyes went wide, frozen open, and unblinking despite the itch behind them.

When he removed the gloves from the box, he was already shaking, shivering slightly from the red that clouded his vision. Bright red leather gloves.

Still shaking, he slipped them on, tugged them tight, his fingertips reaching to their limit, and examined the way they looked at the ends of his arms, aching desperate for a lockpick, a dagger, or a gun. The devil take him.

The gloves were too perfectly red. He tugged on the ends again, hearing a sound he hadn't realized he'd been craving. Joker. The leader of the Phantom Thieves. At that point in his life, he'd been more than just a boy. A thief. A leader. An executioner. The justice the world prayed for. He was chosen by god to lead the world to its salvation.

And he'd let it burn.

Akira touched a red, gloved finger to his bottom lip experimentally, the feel of it taking him back a lifetime ago when he had nothing but good intentions and a sense of justice that tied him to people he didn't know he loved until they slipped through his gloved fucking fingers.

Now he was . . .

“Aki . . . ”

Akira felt his heart thunder in his chest, pounding loud enough to hear above the shaking of his red, gloved hands. Goro was home after all. He slid the same finger along his bottom lip, and closed his eyes, confused and sick and desperate to remember and relive and forget everything. With the gloves still on, he walked in a haze to their bedroom door, opened it, and saw Goro on his back in their bed, one hand in his boxers and the other gripping the headboard. A bottle of cooling lube lay on the floor, discarded carelessly.

He stood in the doorway, leaning lazily against it, and watched as his boyfriend struggled in the sheets, his hand working up and down and picking up pace. “Oh, what’s this? In desperate need of help this evening?”

“A-ki," Goro arched his head back to look at him, lips parted and wanting, "please-- just--”

Still lost to a time that no longer existed, Akira walked to the edge of the bed and smiled down at his lover, opening and closing his hands so that the leather would stretch and moan in the most satisfying of ways.

"You like them?"

Akira nodded.

"You always complained," Goro panted, " about how all of the red gloves were magenta. Is it the right red?"

Akira nodded.

Goro had never seen these gloves-- not then. But somehow he'd found just-- the right-- color.

"Touch me?"

Akira nodded.

He moved into the bed, straddling his boyfriend but remaining on his knees so that the other could continue to work himself while he reached with one gloved hand to brush away brunette bangs.

Goro shook his head defiantly, his wild bangs falling right back into place. Akira watched him part his lips once more, and this time, he slipped a gloved finger between them.

Goro closed his lips around the leather digit, and Akira could feel his tongue wrap, and lick, and drag along his finger through the glove.

Still above Goro, Akira felt his hips roll forward without his consent, and watched as Goro's red eyes darkened with lust, narrowing in the knowledge that he could still unravel him.

Akira slipped his left hand around Goro's neck, his thumb under his chin, teasing just above his adam's apple.

Goro sank further into the sheets, his hips rolling higher in his hand trying to reach Akira for more friction.

“Hmm--” Akira smiled, still dazed, watching his lover chase their favorite high with a fervor he hadn't seen in months. He slipped another finger inside his mouth and breathed deep, hands no longer shaking but heart failing to maintain a steady rhythm. Beautiful, red gloves. Had the other guy touched him like this? Back then, had they danced this same dance together, leather to cream, warm skin? Or, had Goro just imagined it? Dreamed about it? That he and Joker could--

“Right there-- please just--”

And then everything stopped.

Goro's hands flew to grab Akira suddenly, and, in a show of strength Akira rarely witnessed but knew he possessed, he flipped Akira into the sheets and straddled his hips roughly in one, fluid motion. Akira winced in pain, sucking in air between his teeth. It’d happened too fast. It hurt. Fuck, what was even happening anymore?

Goro stared down at him, expression livid.

Akira vaguely remembered being on a ship on all fours and small enough to fit through a tiny hole in the wall.

Goro shifted further down his legs, sitting on his knees, and began to press with his fingers down Akira’s side until he reached the lump of bandages on Akira’s left side.

Akira shook his head, vulnerable, but uncompromising. His hands fell limply to his sides. He couldn't say.

These red gloves were just gloves-- an accessory that spoke of a past he'd never get back to.

When Goro pressed three fingers into the bloodied patch hard, gauging his boyfriend’s reaction as he did so, Akira felt the blood leave his face, his body, his brain, and he choked out pathetically, “Goro--stop.”

“No.”

“Stop,” he pleaded, forgetting the gloves and the fantasy and beautiful dream he'd cursed to forever be a nightmare he'd never wake from.

“Show me," Goro demanded, still cold, calm, with no hint of a threat.

But when Akira didn't move, Goro exposed him on his own, roughly pulling up his shirt to see the large patch that had begun to bleed red once more. “What the fuck is this?”

And there it was, the anger he knew Goro felt, maybe always, maybe constantly-- everything Akira deserved.

“I don’t have to tell you everything.”

Goro ripped the patch off to elicit a hiss of pain from Akira. Red eyes stared, quiet, boiling, and before Akira could reach for him, Goro backhanded him across the face.

It took several seconds for the injury to register because the shock was too lasting, too permanent, overpowering any signals of pain that tried to fight their way to his brain. Akira was sure he laid there for at least the length of all four Avengers movies before he finally settled on anger as the appropriate response.

“What the fuck?!” He tried to sit up, but as soon as he did, Goro pushed him back down again, putting his full weight on his torso to keep him from escaping.

“You’re hurt!" Goro yelled, emotions spilling over all at once as soon as Akira tried to fight back, "Of course you have to tell me! I love you, so I want to help you! Why are you lying to me?”

“I’m hurt so you hit me!?” Akira screamed from below him. What the fuck kind of logic was this?!

Goro's expression fell. He moved off of him, retreating against the wall into the corner of the bed, a screaming, cornered animal, “I found blood in the bed-- on the sheets! You didn't tell me." a sob escaped him, loud and short, before he went on, "You didn’t tell me what this job entailed! You didn't tell me who it was for, either! You haven’t been telling me anything for months! We were supposed to be a team!”

He was crying.

Akira went rigid, staring in disbelief. He'd made Goro cry. He'd done this. This was all his fault.  Why would he assume that the avalanche would take only one victim? Neither of them were going to survive the fall.

Forgetting the pain of his injury, Akira rolled over, moving on his knees towards Goro to take his wrists and pull him into an embrace, “Goro, calm down, okay? I--”

Goro violently pulled away, shoving Akira back into the bed, “What else haven’t you told me?! What else is a lie?!”

On his back in the bed, Akira didn't move, his eyes locked on his lover's, “Goro, nothing, nothing, I’m so sorry." He got up again, approaching this time with much more caution, "Hey, c’mon, it’s not that bad. It just looks bad, but I’m fine and--”

“You’re not fine!” Goro snipped back, tears rolling down his cheeks as they burned in anger.

“I’m telling you I’m fine," Akira went in to embrace him again. He had to calm him down. He wouldn't be able to handle much more of this. He'd reached his limit.

Goro wouldn't have it, however, pushing the offer of physical comfort away with a screeching accusation, “I’m telling you to stop lying!”

“Fucking hell, Goro!" Akira snapped, "What else do I have to do for you? What do I have to do?”

Goro went still, silent, eyes wide with unshed tears.

“I let go of everything for you!” Akira cried.

Goro said nothing, his bangs covering his eyes the same way they did ghosts that were haunted themselves by their past lives that they no longer lived.

“I sacrificed--!” Akira choked, “I--” No, he made another mistake. “I . . .” The mountain. It was falling.

Goro didn’t move, but when he spoke, his voice was dangerously calm and quiet in a way Akira hadn’t heard in years, “I never asked for any of it.”

Everything was falling. Every mistake was falling all around him and soon he’d suffocate. “Goro . . .” Nothing had felt this final-- nothing until now-- until this.

“Sneaking around. Lying outright to me. I just don’t know who you are anymore.”

“I’m the same," Akira didn't recognize his own voice, "I haven’t changed.” Was he shaking again?

“And maybe that’s the problem, too.”

“What does that mean?” his filter was gone.

“Figure it out!”

“Oh, real helpful." He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.

“I’m leaving.” Goro didn't look at him as he pushed past him and began to dress, picking up loose clothing off the floor and putting them on mechanically.

“Leaving? Where are you going to go?”

Goro pulled a bag out of the closet, clicked the locks open, and began to gather more items from about the room. “You think . . . you think my world revolves around you, don’t you?” Goro still wouldn't look at him, and even disappeared a moment in the bathroom to gather more items and toss them into the bag as well.

“Oh my god, Goro," Akira breathed, "I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You did though," his voice remained even, determined, and his eyes only looked straight forward, "I have someone to go to. I have other people in my life aside from you.”

“Goro . . .” the reality of the situation began to settle in, and Akira stood up, “Goro!” But Goro just kept packing, never meeting his gaze or reacting to his pleas  “Goro, hey, put that back, c’mon, what are you doing?” He grabbed Goro's left arm and pulled him back, trying to turn his head to meet his lips in a kiss, but Goro jerked his arm free, still refusing to meet his eyes.

“I’m going. You need to rethink some things, and I guess, so do I . . .”

Akira grabbed him again, but this time, Goro went straight for his injury, punching with his left fist right into his stitches. Akira fell to the floor in pain, tears stinging his eyes more from the reality that Goro would actually hurt him like that than anything else, “Goro!" He watched from his position on the floor as his lover locked his bag and left the room. "Don’t you dare leave! All of this is for you! Goro!”

The door slammed shut, and Akira stared at the gloves on his hands. They were the perfect shade of red.

Of course they were.

 

* * *

 

**CloverGirl:** Hey Futaba, what about you? Got anything?

**CloverGirl:** Fuuuuuttaaabaaa

**CaptainKitto:** Featherman sucks?

**Queen:** Hm, she must be asleep or something? She keeps weird hours.

**CloverGirl:** Well operation save ren from his depression starts tomorrow

**HoneyGG:** Can we not call it that

**4theaesthetic:** That name seems a bit harsh

**CloverGirl:** there u are

**HoneyGG:** i don’t think anyone can save him from his depression but himself

**CloverGirl:** Too real

**CaptainKitto:** Damn

**4theaesthetic:** ( •᷄⌓•᷅ )

**Queen:** Poor name aside, we’ve got a plan so let’s do this

**HoneyGG:** inari, i can’t even imagine that face on you

**BishoujoKaito:** Futaba, I feel the same way, but sometimes people can’t see what they need until others show them what they’re missing.

**4theaesthetic:** I agree.

**4theaesthetic:** with Haru

**HoneyGG:** i saw him today and he said he was sorry

**CloverGirl:** OMG!! that’s a start!

**CloverGirl:** (•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑

**HoneyGG:** no 

**HoneyGG:** it’s another dynasty warriors sequel no one asked for

**CaptainKitto:** harsh

**Queen:** ok then

**CloverGirl:** he asked about all of you but i like told him to ask you guys himself

**CloverGirl:** ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ

**Queen:** thank you. That’s more than any of us accomplished and you didn’t even plan on participating

**BishoujoKaito:** Yes, thank you, Futaba. 

**CloverGirl:** save it. 

**CloverGirl:** it probably didn’t do anything. I think i caught him off guard cause he was like, totally off

**CaptainKitto:** wuts that mean

**HoneyGG:** like, forgot his glasses off? like he made shit jokes, too

**Queen:** I wonder what that was about?

**BishoujoKaito:** Whatever is going on, it’s best if we are there for him through it.

**CloverGirl:** totally

**CloverGirl:** ill talk to him tomorrow and see if he’ll meet up

**4theaesthetic:** best of luck to you.

**CapitainKitto:** i call next

**Queen:** Got it. Keep us updated, ok?

**CloverGirl:** 4 sure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Offering two sides of the same coin /cough/ story, every other chapter throughout the series will focus on third limited with alternating chapters between Ren and Akira/Goro. Hopefully, it successfully demonstrates not only the division between them but also the division in relationships such as Akira and Goro's or even the varying relationships between Ren and Akira's confidants.  
> I was deeply concerned with each POV sounding slightly different without being jarring, and by far, Akira was the most fun to write. Any feedback on this writing style is deeply appreciated to help me maintain and strengthen it as the story continues.  
> Thank you again for reading even if it is painful! T _T  
> 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Fun fact: This theater is real and right in the heart of Shibuya about a fifteen minute walk from the station. Minus the popcorn, I tried to replicate my experience of seeing a documentary there. /hearts  
> 
> 
> Oh, right, **[What kind of opinionated pastry are you?](https://www.buzzfeed.com/nathanwpyle/which-opinionated-pastry-are-you) **? I'm a Decisive Cannoli. /fist bump


	3. Chapter 3

"Where are we going?" 

Ren smiled, leading Goro to the third floor of the Round One they'd ended up inside for their second not-date. Going with something more popular and traditional, Goro had invited him to Ikebukuro, and though they'd inevitably ended up on Sunshine City street, they had yet to get past the Round One to arrive at the large mall two blocks away.

Ren, on a journey for greater things, had invited Goro into the arcade with a sole purpose. After they played a few of the more popular games on the second floor, Ren had taken Goro's hand without any formality and led him upstairs. He’d half expected to feel the same slick material of the gloves the detective prince donned religiously out of a necessity to keep his hands clean and the truth sealed, but the warm, soft skin he touched instead reminded Ren once more that this was not that person. Ren pulled him along without stopping even as he heard the suspicion in Goro's voice. 

Now at the top of the stairs, he looked at Goro with a small, sly smile "Purikura."

Goro blinked, clearly not expecting such a turn of events. "You always sneak your dates into photo booths?" he asked skeptically. Ren marveled at the tone of voice, as it pushed a hundred memories of the last five years to the surface, many of which didn’t belong there.

Together, they walked past the sign that read "No Men Allowed Alone" below stick figures with a red "x" over them. "Depends," Ren stopped just beyond the warning as if to make a point, "Does it surprise you?"

He watched Goro roll his eyes and struggled to keep himself from kissing him right then and there because even with the subtle threat in the gesture, amusement still slipped through in the half-smirk Goro attempted to conceal. In an effort to stave the desire, Ren let go of his not-date and searched the room for an open booth. There were groups of young women around 2Cute2Sexy, a few mix gendered groups by BeautifulYou Springtime Edition, but, quite obviously, they were the only two men who stood alone. He hadn’t done one of these since he’d come with Futaba more than two years ago, so instead of being picky over a particular machine, he looked for whatever machine wasn’t crowded with loud, young adults. There didn't appear to be any game center attendants on the floor, but they should move quickly just to be safe. 

"This way," and Ren went for it, dodging three girls in high heels that were all decorated in various colors of fake fur. With an effortless flair for chivalry, Ren held up the flap that acted as the doorway to the booth and Goro ducked beneath him, "I haven't done one of these in a long time," he moderately protested, shaking his head as the women on the screens in front of them winked and grinned as they posed for the camera. Ren tapped at the touch screen to decide how much contrast the photos should have and whether the makeup would be ‘sweet’ or ‘mature’.

"Surprise," Ren smiled.

Goro moved in closer, playfully bumping Ren to the side with a shove of his hips, "Move over, I want to choose a background, too."

Ren let his blush hide behind his glasses. He still wasn’t used to a Goro who was so openly flirtatious. On one hand, it felt so out-of-character, but on the other, it gave him pause. It made him consider just who Goro was without his past, without his sin, and without his regret. He knew Goro carried regret with him back then; he wouldn’t have martyred himself if not. 

Goro chose the rest of the many options before the countdowns began to start. Music swelling and lights flashing, the screen showed two women in short dresses with their bodies facing each other and holding hands, their puckered faces pointed towards the camera. Biting back his shyness since this was a dream he’d have to take for himself, Ren grabbed Goro’s hands and mimicked the pose.

The screen changed to show them the camera’s view, and Goro, instead of pulling his hands away or complaining, burst into laughter in Ren’s face, “What are you-?” the sound of the photo being taken cut him off, and their photo floated down to the bottom left of the screen.

“You’re ridiculous! This is-”

The next model photo showed two girls with their legs and arms crossed side by side. Ren did the same, pulling his glasses down to the tip of his nose to show off his eyes.

"Are you just mimicking the poses in the photos?" Goro laughed but did the same, having no trouble as he leaned into the camera and gave it a wink.

Ren could barely keep up with how comfortable and carefree Goro appeared to be now, and when his eyes drifted to the seductive little smirk on Goro’s face, his mistake had been caught on camera.

He tried to make light of it, "Why not?"

Goro laughed again, bright and sweet, his teeth too blinding with the camera lights; it was new enough that only two memories were attached to it. "I mistook you for someone shy; you're being rather bold at the moment."

Feeling empowered, Ren lifted his chest a bit, straightened his back, and mimicked the next model photo, turning profile to wrap his arms around his waist. "You seem to like it." Goro went red, but he didn’t pull away, and instead mimicked the pose as well, his arms around Ren’s waist with his hands clasped together on his lower back.

Their eyes met, and time went still. Ren, hearing only the breath that struggled to escape in his lungs, parted his lips to either speak or welcome a kiss, and Goro leaned his head down just a few centimeters to do one of the two. The sound of the camera snap and the brilliant, blinding flash, divided instantly their shared fantasy from their separate realities causing them to all but jump away from one another.

"How should I pose for this one?" giving Ren a pointed look because he had no intention to lift the corner of the skirt he wasn’t wearing.

"Hero pose?" It had been the first thing to come to mind under the pressure of the countdown from the machine.

"Ok, got it!" Goro struck a pose with his left hand bent in, elbow out, gesturing to himself and his right hand extended towards the camera.

Ren recognized it instantly.

Nothing was this perfect. He lived suddenly in a world separate from his own, one in which that precious, haunting nothing was everything and life was worth in this moment more than in every other moment combined.

"What's that supposed to be?"

"A knight?"

The camera snapped, and the lights flashed.

Ren breathed in deeply and burst into laughter, his heart feeling lighter by the second. He broke his own pose in which he’d looked ready to rip off an invisible mask to call upon demonic forces to aid his heroics.

He heard Goro ask, "Well, what about yours?" over the sound of the music of the photo machine.

"I'm not a hero," he calmed down enough to squeak a sombering sentence out.

"That's a nice change." Goro replied, somehow casting shadow over his eyes in a shadow-less room.

Ren looked up at him questioningly, his gray eyes less effective in a room where nothing could hide.

Goro shook his head, chestnut hair all but glittering from the harsh lighting around them, "Forget it. Oh, a bonus shot. How should we--?"

Without warning, Ren grabbed for the other's hand, looking up at him as soon as their fingers intertwined. The music disappeared once more. The lighting died down to shine on Goro's face alone. Wide, red eyes parted, full lips glossed over with chapstick a flavor that Ren was desperate to know, Goro stared, stunned in disbelief, transfixed and trapped under endless, cloudy, gray skies. The shot was taken, but neither pulled away. Instead, Ren searched inside the reflection of himself in Goro's eyes.

He looked whole.

He didn't recognize himself at all.

The flap on the left side of the booth opened and two girls peeked inside, squealed something incomprehensible, and closed the flap immediately.

"I wasn't ready." Goro pulled away.

"That's part of the fun, isn't it?" Ren smiled. "We should go."

Goro nodded soundlessly and followed him out and to the decorating corner, "You take pleasure in flustering me, Amamiya Ren." They stood side by side, just close enough that their arms touched.

"You catch on quickly."

They decorated the photos without issue. Akira redressed Goro as a white knight and drew a sky blue sword in his hand. Goro was able to dress the intimate photo and he exacted his revenge by making Ren’s cheeks pink with rose stamps over them. Beside him, he even wrote out the caption, ' _ notice me senpai _ '.

Looking at the printed copies, Ren held the photo up to his glasses, "Did you just turn me into a meme?"

"Are you upset?" Goro grinned, clearly pleased with his reaction.

Ren pocketed the photos and smiled instead, "I just did purikura with you. How could I be sad?"

"That's too much."

But putting his arms around his waist wasn't? Ok. That was okay. Ren could work with this. As they ducked out of the area and to the stairs, Ren put his hand over his pocket to check that the photos were still there. Now, he could look at this physical proof and remind himself none of it had been a dream.

Even if Goro weren’t beside him, he had physical proof that showed he was real.

He was okay.

He was alive.

"Want anything out of the UFO catchers?" They passed the second floor where some of the machines lined the walls opposite the stairs.

"I can get it myself." Goro rolled his eyes, making a show that he was not in the mood for anyone showing off this evening.

"It's a 'thank you'." Ren turned around the offer, purposefully choosing to go with Japanese politeness as his mode of attack for this round.

Goro rolled his eyes again and Ren's lungs shrunk suddenly. "It's a challenge," Goro clarified, clearly not having the patience for polite obligations.

"If you say so." Ren didn't mind making it a game so long as they played; if they played, they'd spend more time together, and now that Goro was back in his life, he couldn't begin to be tired of spending time at his side. Besides, competition felt more like what their relationship had once been if he were being honest.

"This one." They'd ended up on the street level of the game center where UFO catchers dominated the entire floor. In the back room, there in the center, were two refrigerated machines.

"Ice cream?" Ren hadn't expected it, but it made him smile because, thinking about it, the prize was so like Goro. It was challenging because it was unique. It was practical because it was edible. It was sweet, which was Goro's favorite, at least, it had been back then, and Ren had yet to find anything to indicate otherwise thus far. And finally, it would leave no evidence behind of their encounter. Goro might have to explain a key chain or a stuffed plush, but not ice cream. It could easily be purchased from some conbini, or, better yet, it could be eaten before Goro even arrived home. Ren wondered if this was just the line of thinking that Goro would follow now.

"Haagen-dazs." Goro clarified.

"Flavor?" Ren peered over into the glass to see the literal towers of tiny cartons.

Without even looking at the ice cream, Goro stacked 100-yen coins beside the two buttons labeled with giant arrows, "Strawberry is 500 points, and all of the others are 200 points."

"You just made this up." Ren watched as Goro transformed, serious and adamant.

In an effort to get a rise out of him, Goro dropped the tone of his voice, an edge in it that demanded Ren rise to the occasion, "I didn't take you for a quitter, Amamiya."

"Time limit?" Ren decided he'd rise to just about any occasion if Goro was going to challenge him with nothing short of seduction.

"Ten minutes." Goro already had the timer ready on his phone.

Inspired by the innate lust in that guttural tone of voice, Ren fought back the onslaught of images his imagination decided to throw at him and inserted the first hundred yen coin to spring the UFO catcher to life.

Ten minutes later, a familiar buzzer went off on Goro's phone, and they both looked up, eyes meeting for the first time since the clock had begun. Ren couldn't believe ten minutes had already passed. He hadn't been so focused, hadn't had this much fun, since well, since the walk through the blue lights in Shibuya the last time he'd been together with Goro. For a moment, he entertained the idea of this experience as a new normal: Goro counting up the arbitrary number of points for their winnings, huffing and puffing and blushing brilliantly over the fact that Ren had won, a crowd of people watching them with a shared awe at the way his eyes lit up, his honeyed, impassioned voice claiming, "You were lucky this time."

"I guess this is dinner now." Ren gathered the two bags the game attendants prepared for them, complete with ice packs, and followed Goro outside.

"I'm kind of embarrassed. I didn't expect to draw a crowd."

Even without seeing his expression, Ren could hear his lie, but he wouldn't call him out for that. "Don't be. It's cute." He watched Goro adjust his scarf when he stopped in the street, unsure of where Goro wanted to go from there, "Shall we eat it outside?"

“Yeah," the brunette burrowed his hands into opposite sleeves to keep them warm and turned in the opposite direction of the mall, "there’s a place I wanted to take you to actually.”

"Lead the way, Soumei," Ren replied with a sweeping gesture of his free hand.

A half hour later, just as the sun fell below the horizon, they were paying their entry fees into Meijiro Gardens. Once inside, they walked around the park in quiet wonder until they arrived at a gazebo that overlooked a large pond. The lights danced on the black water as a few fish touched the surface out of curiosity before disappearing again beneath the rippling waves.

“I've never been here. Thank you for bringing me.” The lights here were not tiny, sparkling things that wrapped around trees in strands like they'd seen in Yoyogi. Instead, they were large spotlights of various colors that shot up from the ground to color the branches and leaves of the trees. There were so many that few shadows could be seen save for the tips of the branches that faded into the night sky. Japanese gardens always found a way of providing privacy, solitude, and peace even in the midst of a city of over seven million people, and Meijiro gardens wasn't any different in that regard. They felt like the only two people in the world, and Ren couldn't help but read into the fact that Goro had decided to bring him here of all of places.

Goro waved his left hand dismissively in critique, “The illuminations here are pretty different but--”

“Not everything is a competition, Akechi,” Ren was smiling, but with the low light, he knew it may be difficult for Goro to see. Grateful that no one else in the gardens found the gazebo as a place of interest for the moment, Ren led them inside to the bench that looked over the large pond.

When they sat down, Goro unwrapped his scarf from around his neck until it hung loosely over his shoulders.

Ren leaned in and boldly reached for the other man's fingers, feeling the warmth of them sending a tingling sensation that went straight to his heart, making him instantly weak with pain. He'd reached for them to warm them in his own, but that warmth was gone in an instant when Goro pulled away.

Ren said nothing but did create a bit more distance between them, setting the two bags of ice cream cartons on the bench so that the could both reach for them.

“Ahh, Amamiya, I haven’t had that much fun in forever," he didn't look at him when he said it, too busy admiring the scenery. "It was nice to have the attention, too,” he reflected as an afterthought, his arms moving into the thinking man’s pose.

“And the flirting?” Ren watched him put his hand to his chin and felt his own hands shake.

“Doesn’t hurt anyone,” he looked at him sideways, a smile meant to seduce on his lips.

He couldn't speak, but he managed smiling back, hoping that in the dim light he appeared as equally appealing to Goro as Goro did to him.

“Your smile, Amamiya, I can’t place it. It feels like a memory, something so nostalgic and yet refreshingly new. You’d tell me if we’d met before, wouldn’t you?” he'd moved his hands to rest on the edge of the bench, fingers tapping to a melody Ren couldn't hear.

It was human to be tortured by an earworm; he wished he knew just what had wriggled its way inside Goro's mind.

"Amamiya?"

He looked up, replying just quick enough to give himself away, “Of course, yeah.”

“Your eagerness betrays you. You do realize you called me ‘Akechi’ a few minutes ago?”

“Did I?” He expertly hid his horror behind his favorite mask of silent apathy.

Goro's fingers stopped dancing, and he snuck his hands inside his sleeves again. Neither of them spoke. A couple walked behind them to snap photos of the landscape. The fish repeated their curious peek above the water's surface. Goro crossed his legs and flipped his bangs from his face. Ren remained still.

When they were finally alone again, Goro spoke, soft and apprehensive, as though he had mulled over his words for days before speaking them, “I have amnesia.” Ren looked up, watched him in the dim light, and waited for him to go on. “ . . . I don’t remember anything of my life prior to four years ago.”

Ren waited for Goro's eyes to meet his, but Goro didn't look away from the reflections in the water. Hoping it would work to his advantage, he replied honestly, “I don’t know what the right thing is to say.”

“The honest thing?” Goro's eyes finally met his, and he felt the air leave his lungs yet again. He hadn't seen him that vulnerable since he'd-- not since he'd--

Goro smiled at him, small and sad, as if he realized exactly what Ren was thinking, what he was reliving.

“Promise?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Ren learned to breathe again. “You, as you are now. . . The other night at the bar, that was the first time I’d met Soumei Goro.”

Goro showed his teeth in his smile, taking a cheeky tone, “But you knew Akechi Goro,” he finished for him.

“Yes,” he whispered, gaze fixed once more. This was it. This was the moment Goro would return to him, wasn't it? The moment Goro would decide that they were meant to be together? That he was meant to be a part of life?

“I figured as much,” he breathed in a sigh, and exhaled with a slump of his shoulders, looking away to search out answers beneath the surface of the water, “Being with you feels like coming home.”

What could be sweeter than that? He reached out to him only to pull away slowly, containing his desires with a bite to his lower lip. He knew it. He knew that back then, Goro had reciprocated his feelings. No matter what he'd done or said, he knew, deep down. He'd always known.

The two of them were two halves of the same soul.

“I’m so happy," he heard himself say, having no desire to search out answers when all of them were sitting right beside him. "I haven’t been happy in such a long time.”

Before Goro could respond, his phone went off. Seeing that Goro sat undisturbed, still looking out at their surrounding scenery, Ren pulled the phone out to check the message. Receiving a message from Ann was rare, so he unlocked his phone to read it in case it was an emergency.

 

**Hey, when are you free? Let’s grab some burgers soon. There is a special now and youre the only person who can keep up with me so like tell me when you can**

 

Ren typed a quick message and tucked his phone away, focused on the person he couldn’t keep his mind from. He'd wanted no distractions for fear that the atmosphere would shift, but the damage had been done. The moment was over. He gathered the pieces of himself he'd laid bare for Goro to see, and put himself back together in a rush, hoping to keep the other's attention long enough to keep his presence.

“Only one thing could make this better,” he said, looking at Goro with a grin.

“Hmm?” Goro looked beside him, and when their eyes met, he nodded toward what lay between them.

“Melted ice cream?” He held up the bag. Even if the game center attendant had provided them with the bags and some cold packs, it wasn’t likely that the ice cream had remained solid in the last half hour.

“I hope not.” Goro reached inside the bag after Ren set it on the bench between them and held up the container in the light that shined at an angle just above their heads, trying to make out the flavor.

Ren took one out as well and did the same, moving his glasses up to rest on top of his head as he did so. Five-hundred points stared him back in the face. “Strawberry?” he offered the container to Goro and Goro took it and gave him his own.

“Thank you,” he replied. He could feel Goro’s eyes on him as he pulled the lid from the one he’d been handed, “You’re going to eat that one?”

After setting the lid aside, Ren held up the carton to the light after and read the katakana slowly, “Espresso Chocolate Cookie Crumble?”

“Oh? I got that one,” he spooned pink, soft cream into his mouth. Ren figured he must have meant when they were competing for who the best UFO catcher master was. “It should have been worth more points, honestly. It was the rare.”

Ren popped off the spoon on the underside of the lid, peeling the film back to reveal a brown and black ice cream. He chuckled,  “You’re the one who made the rules.”

Goro shrugged, spooning more pink ice cream into his mouth, “I just wanted more strawberry.”

“It’s your favorite flavor?” Ren asked. He had nothing to compare this opinion to except for the consistency that a love for sweet things was not tied to memory.

“Yes, though, only if it tastes like real strawberries. Like, there are real strawberry chunks in Haagan-dazs which is one of the reasons why it’s good.”

Ren marveled at the way Goro presented himself, his legs crossed, one foot dangling and moving to the earworm Ren still desired to learn. His hair had been pinned at some point in the back during their walk so that it didn’t get in his face and when Ren hadn’t been looking, Goro had doubled his scarf up to his chin to keep himself warm. In one hand was his small carton of ice cream while in the other was the tiny spoon, which, when free of ice cream, he used to gesticulate with as he explained his preferences. Ren paused, realizing he was staring when his eyes met Goro’s own, which were now a bright amber since the lights from the illumination behind Ren lit them up. 

“What? Eat your ice cream. You’re always doing that.”

Staring? Yeah, he was, but he couldn’t be blamed for it. Goro had come back from the dead, and they’d just done purikura together and were now sharing ice cream alone in the middle of a garden. He didn’t even recognize his life in this moment. Reality sounded more like a fantasy he toyed with to get him through the loneliness of a cold, November day. “We’ve met twice.”

“Well, that just proves how often it happens. You’re always looking at me like that,” he sounded annoyed, but Ren knew better.

“Like what?” he bit the bullet.

“Like you’re in love with me.” 

Ren froze.

“Wow,” Goro held up the ice cream, which somehow still remained solid enough to be turned sideways without slipping out of the carton entirely, beside Ren's face to demonstrate his point, “You’re more red than this ice cream.”

He felt his cheeks only warm further, the heat spreading all the way up to his ears, “I’ve always been in love with you," he confessed, no longer in control of his actions, his fate, whatever, "but it’s more than that." It had to be. They'd been through too much together. They'd been separated for so long and had now found each other again. If there hadn't been enough evidence before, there had to be now. It wasn't god's game. It was something else. Something unidentifiable but more real than any other governing force of nature-- 

“You and I-- we--”

“Stop.”

The single word flipped a switch inside him, turning the screw in his mind and warping reality beyond distinction. One hand in chestnut hair, the other gripping gently to the warm muscle of his thigh that could be felt all the way through the material of his jeans, Ren had effectively discarded his ice cream to the bench in favor of pinning Goro in place, nearly in his lap with an undisguised need to become suddenly more intimate with the object of his eternal, obsessive affections. The word gave a delayed echo in his mind and he quickly moved away, grabbing the ice cream back in one smooth motion, careful to move far enough away from Goro to give him the space he requested.

The air between them grew colder, the wind picking up slightly to tell them that the moment had passed.

Carefully, Ren spoke first, “That’s okay, too." He paused, and when Goro didn't reply, he went on, "Goro, it doesn’t matter to me what capacity I exist beside you in. Just let me make you happy. In any way I can, please. I just want to be a reason for your happiness-- to bring you happiness. There’s nothing more important to me. Goro, don’t you see?”

“See what?” the whispered question hung in the air like a shield of defiance, ready to reflect any additional onslaught of unwanted advances emotional or otherwise.

Ren went silent, brought back inside his own body upon Goro’s words, ' _ I just want you to be happy _ ,' is what he wanted to say. It wasn’t quite what he meant, but he knew that carried the same sentiment. Instead, he met Goro’s volume, and whispered quietly under his breath, “Nevermind.”

“I don’t really understand you,” Goro admitted, eyeing him quizzically.

Feeling empowered, hearing a question in between the words meant to end the conversation, Ren tried explaining, “Whatever you’ll allow, I--”

“You’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you?” he interrupted him with what sounded more like an accusation than a question.

And Ren knew he would, without a doubt. He had Goro back now; he knew he was alive. He’d do anything to keep it that way-- no, no, anything to keep him happy. “ . . . Yes.” Goro took the ice cream carton from beside Ren’s and replaced it with his own. Ren didn’t remember to smile, but the action did make him warm. Goro being bossy, impolite, selfish were all indicators that he was just being himself. Besides, he liked strawberry ice cream, too, especially when it came with the added bonus of an indirect kiss.

“Tell me the truth. Did you know me well back then?” Goro wasn’t looking at him as he began to finish off the espresso chocolate cookie crumble treat.

Goro's prior words echoed in his mind, so he tried the honesty card once more, “I tried to.”

“Was I . . . a bad person?”

“You’ve never been a bad person.” he responded without thinking, but upon reflection, realized it didn’t require a second thought.

“But I’ve done terrible things, haven’t I?”

“You did, but--”

“It’s okay,” Goro cut him off, standing up to walk to the railing that offered a full view of the many colored trees around them, “I already know.”

What did he know? And if he had amnesia, then how could he know anything at all? He could easily Google search his name. It was crazy to think that he had kept pretty much the same hairstyle all of these years and not a single one of his fans had recognized him. But, his public persona had been guilty of no crimes. His public persona had gone missing and faded out of existence. He’d never been accused of having anything to do with Shido, at least not in the eyes of the public.

“You look at me just like--” Goro had turned to lean his back against the railing and faced Ren. The light from behind Ren lit him up entirely, and it left Ren in awe how the scenery looked gray in comparison.

“ . . . Like who?” Ren asked the right question. Earlier, Goro had identified his feelings, he'd called him out on the affection that rested behind his eyes and in his heart. So, it made sense that if he were comparing him to someone else, to another person, that the person in question looked at him the same way.

“ . . . Can I do any wrong in your eyes?” he smirked, using the same tone as when he'd challenged him to somehow make crane games competitive.

“Not without good reason,” Ren mimicked the tone, happy to oblige Goro with a similar expression.

Goro shook his head, short and dismissive, clearly holding laughter back in his throat. Ren waited for him to compose himself, and was rewarded in seconds, “Last question. Would you lie to me?”

“No,” he lied.

“Promise me . . . that you’ll never lie to me.”

This mattered deeply to Goro, so Ren saw no other choice, “I promise.”

Goro smiled, relief weighing his lashes low. He sat down again, reached for Ren's left hand, and held it in his. Ren's fingers squeezed reassuringly, and didn't pull away in hopes that they'd never have to let go.

“Ren, you . . ." Goro rubbed his thumb over smooth, bony knuckles. “All this time what did you think happened to Akechi Goro?”

“I thought you were dead,” he replied lifelessly, staring at their hands while his first name spoken in Goro's voice bounced around inside his skull. He couldn't let this hand go. Goro was what really tied him to this world. His promise from all of those years ago had kept him living, fighting, and haunted.

"You know, the longer you hold my hand, the more this ice cream melts."

Their eyes met. Goro laughed first and Ren played along.

 

* * *

 

Someone who looked like him enough that Goro couldn't tell them apart? Despite what Morgana claimed, he never believed that the metaverse had been, essentially, destroyed. Perhaps Mementos had been? Perhaps the portal that granted access to the metaverse had been? But, the collective consciousness would never cease to be. Perhaps it just took on different shapes or appeared in different ways to different people. If there was someone out there that truly looked so similar to him than more likely than not, it was metaverse related. Only in the metaverse, only as a cognition, had he seen a manifestation of his own likeness. Sure, he could have had some long lost twin or maybe a clone after his parents had, without telling him, run his DNA to 23andme, but somehow the most likely answer was that this was some physical manifestation of the metaverse. Or, well, just some random guy who looked a lot like him, which, though simple, just didn't feel right.

He had the Sunday off, and though he should be studying, he instead was scrolling through his contact list on his phone with a frown. His friends would have likely said something, so likely the thief, which he'd call him for now since he’d stolen Goro from him, was avoiding contact with the Phantom Thieves.

So, if the thief had not gone to any of the other Phantom Thieves, that left his many other confidants. Who had he not spoken to recently?

Everyone.

No, wait, not everyone. He met with Ichiko all the time. In fact, since she frequented Crossroads more often than he did, and he worked there, he saw her more often than anyone else from that year. She was always up in his business and asking questions, but she was consistently loyal to him, so it couldn't have been her. He'd seen Takemi about a month ago and she'd never said anything. Yoshida, too, was not likely.

So, the people he hadn't connected with in some time were Shinya, Sadayo, Chihaya, Iwai, Hifumi, Mishima, and Sae. Quite the list, he'd have to take one at a time. He was in Shinjuku now, so he could meet with Chihaya first and then Iwai. From there, it would just depend on who responded to his text messages.

He opened the chat he had with Shinya and noticed the most recent time stamp. They hadn't texted in seven months. Ren took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. The kid was in high school now, his first year-- Futaba's age when they'd saved the world. Before deciding who he would send a message to, he checked the time stamps for the others he hadn't spoken to in a while. It had been a little over a year for Sadayo. He'd touched base with Mishima six months ago. About a month ago, Hifumi had sent him photos of some mushrooms she'd seen on a trip she'd taken to Kagoshima, and he had never responded. And Sae? He hadn't seen Sae in three years. He hadn't even spoken to her.

Wow.

His behavior had been less than ideal but he tried to forgive himself. After all, he knew it was a two-way street, and he knew that entering adulthood would mean the inevitable separation of the people you shared strong bonds with. It was natural for people to drift apart, and on more than one level, it was inevitable. He couldn't blame himself for that, right?

Besides, time and distance were just tests to see just how strong the bond was between you and someone else. Maybe he did take some of his bonds for granted, but he didn't want to see it that way. Instead, he thought more of it as a trust placed upon someone else. He trusted them that no matter how long they had been apart or out of touch; they would still be there for him and he'd be there for them no matter what.

 

**Cute mushrooms. I would love to see more of your photos. How have you been? Would you like to meet up?**

 

He messaged Hifumi first; he'd take this investigation one step at time.

In Shinjuku, Kabukicho's brilliant, flashing LEDs shed more light on the streets than the cloudy sky above. Chihaya had made a name for herself in the area; he'd teased her once that she'd reached urban legend status after a celebrity from South Korea and a local politician had come to her for advice and then thanked her publicly. For a good five months, she had been booked for tarot readings. That had been two years ago, but she still lived from the profits. She wouldn't admit it, but he was sure that she had a few regular customers that had no trouble paying for whatever she needed to go on practicing her natural-born talents and honing her skills. She had her own shop, though small, and when he arrived, the receptionist smiled knowingly at him as if he were a regular.

"Akira! Welcome~!" she beamed, punctuating the name with a very affectionate 'kun' at the end.

"Hey," he greeted her with a small smile, smoothly taking in that he already had the answer he was looking for and now, he even had a name.

"She doesn't have an appointment for another fifteen. I'll let her know you're here," she promised before disappearing behind a decorated door.

After a few minutes, she returned and motioned for him to go through the colorful door behind her. "She's waiting for you!"

He smiled at her again, nodded his head, and went through, closing the door behind him while breathing in the earthy scent of incense almost immediately. The tatami room was decorated to be comfortable, but unlike the typical modest, minimalist designs of Japanese culture, it was decorated in pillows and tapestries in various, dyed colors of late sunset, just before the sun disappeared behind the horizon. In the center of the room, Chihaya sat on her own pillow, smiling brilliantly at him as she shuffled her cards over a low, wooden table. Their eyes met and she greeted him in the same sing-song voice he'd hear often in the streets of Kabukicho on the way to Crossroads, "Welcome, Aki- Ren. Oh my." Her expression fell immediately, a hand going to her mouth when she realized her mistake. Wide eyes behind long lashes told him of her apprehension, but he met them with a smile to calm her down.

Ren's eyes studied her from behind his glasses, and he sat down, watching her through the lenses. The light in the room was too dim to cast a glare to hide his eyes behind his frames, so, remembering what Goro said, he took the glasses off since it was certainly no secret to Chihaya that he didn’t need them. He hadn’t meant to be dishonest. "Sorry about that.”

She watched him, flustered, and set her cards down on the table. "Amamiya Ren, you caught me!" she admitted, her eyes taking light again after having a moment to adjust to her company.

"Long time no see,” he smiled wider, turning up the charm, “Sounds like you've met my thief?"

"Your thief?" she crossed her arms, playful.

He imitated her tone, "Oh, so he didn't steal you from me?"

Her back went straight and she put her hands in her lap, her cheeks going pink, "You are not flirting with me right now, Mister."

"What would you call him then?" Ren asked, relieved that there was no tension between them after the near year it had been since they’d last met.

Recovering bit by bit, she relaxed into the floor. "I'd call him your doppelganger, but he is too human for that."

"A doppelganger? I'm kind of familiar with the term. Remind me?" From memory, he could recall that it was a German word.

"A doppelganger is a being created in the likeness of another that, upon meeting them, will result in bad luck or possibly even death,” she explained carefully, taking on that tone he was all too familiar with. She sounded equal parts intrigued and ominous just like when she was reading her cards.

He chose his next question carefully, "he looks that much like me?" He didn’t believe in doppelgangers, but he believed in cognitions and demons and quite a number of ghosts; the thief had to be one of the three.

"Yes," she replied, studying him as she continued. "He tried to pretend to be you, but I saw through him."

"You're amazing, Chihaya,” he admitted, rubbing his bangs between two fingers. Even Goro, who was supposedly dating him and may have been for years, had not been able to tell them apart, but Chihaya, who had been unaware of the possibility of someone walking around with Ren’s face, had been able to distinguish the copy from the original.

"You know flattery gets you nowhere with me," she laughed, her blush telling otherwise. "You didn't come here for a tarot reading, did you?"

"I need to know who he's approached as me," he said honestly.

"Has he caused you trouble?" her round, honey eyes bore into him.

The question threw him off, and so did her shift in presentation. He thought back on what he had learned so far, and what he had experienced with Goro. Goro appeared to be safe. And all of these years, Ren himself had been oblivious to all of it; he had no idea that someone with his face was invading certain aspects of his life and playing out with Goro a fantasy that Ren had desired to the point of delusion, " . . . Well, honestly, not that I know of directly . . . yet, but . . . he did try to lie to you, right?" Whatever he did, it wasn't something he could achieve on his own. He had to use Ren's connections and resources to be successful.

"Yes."

"What can you tell me?" he tried, still studying her. His smile had faded with her own, but he was relieved to watch it blossom once more as she pondered the question.

"He well, um, he is very charismatic. He has a very boyish charm. He came seeking relationship advice, actually," she said it as though it had been a surprise. Was it because even when offered, he'd not once requested such a thing?

"Relationship advice? Like, for a significant other?" For Goro?

"Yes."

“How did that work out?” If he knew how recent that had been, it would give him a clue as to where he stood with Goro and what hope there might be for Goro to make a smooth transition between them.

No, that wasn't why he was here.

She smiled at him, pulling her long blonde hair behind her shoulders, “The readings of my clients are confidential.”

He pressed, “You’re pretty loyal to him,” hoping that she might cave and tell him more.

Instead, he hurt her feelings, her eyes on the table and her lips in a line, “Ren, it’s not like that. He’s just . . . I wanted to help him." She looked up at him with a renewed sense of integrity he admired, "I probably wanted to help him because he reminded me of you, and I have waited for a long time for you to come back seeking my counsel. I’ve waited for you to need my help again.” When he didn’t respond in any way but averting his eyes, she went on, her voice softer, almost a plea, “Your fate is tied to so many others, and you and I believe in the same things. I want to support you as you move forward.”

“You think I can change things . . . for the better I mean?” No one had told him that in a long time. Maybe Haru, the most recently, but she held him on a pedestal. He could do literally anything and she would call it 'perfect' because it was something he did. It wasn't bad, but it was bias.

“I believe you can. I want to believe that you will. I want to be a part of that change.” Hearing it from someone else stirred a tiny bit of pride inside him. He really did want to change a lot of things for Japan. He had ideas for how to improve foster care, the prison system, and so many other broken agencies and issues that he hadn't even begun to identify a focus. After the Phantom Thieves, he learned quickly that he couldn't depend on adults to change things, at least, not the adults that were in charge then. He was at the age in which he could be called an adult, but he didn't feel there yet. He wanted to hold off from the distinction as long as he could if it meant understanding the perspectives of the youth he hoped to help for even just a bit longer.

Chihaya's words were kind, but more than that, he knew they were genuine. He'd come here looking for the thief and then even questioned her loyalty when all she wanted was to help. All she wanted was to see him at his best.

He could be such an asshole. Now was not the time to dwell on it, but he still felt the need to apologize, “I’m sorry I haven’t visited,” was all he could manage.

“It’s alright," she put a hand over his and squeezed it, pulling away in just seconds. "I have your number. I could have asked to see you again.”

He shook his head, “I don’t really make myself available-- not like I used to, but- that’s going to change now.” He didn't exactly believe his own words, but he understood where they came from: a place of fear. If he kept away from his confidants, what would happen? Would the thief swoop in and just steal them all? Collect them like treasures to use and manipulate as he pleased?

“Oh? Is it because of the person who shares your face?” she was smiling, but it gave him a chill.

He wasn't sure if she understood that much because of her skill at reading the needs of others or if it was only because they shared a history together. “Not quite, but-- I guess he is part of it.”

His honesty must have inspired her to be more forthcoming because she offered a bit more information, knowing full well that Ren still wanted to know more, “He never mentioned you, and he didn’t have any ill will, but . . .”

“But?”

“I’m afraid his aura has dimmed over time," she admitted solemnly.

“Over time?” he pressed again, watching her young face grow even more concerned.

“He has been visiting sporadically for almost a year,” she admitted.

“Wow.” And she hadn't said a word? Or had she tried to and he'd ignored her? The last message she had sent when he checked earlier was indeed a request for him to visit. What else had he missed in the last year?

No.

_ Who _ else had he missed?

She picked up her cards and began to shuffle them once more, her eyebrows knit with worry, “I don’t think he’s a bad person, but, like the story of the doppleganger, I’m not sure the two of you should meet.”

And that was the end of it. They chatted for a little while to catch up. She offered to do a short reading, but he declined. Whatever the cards had in store for him, they wouldn't tell him the truth about who his thief really was, and they wouldn't tell him the connection between himself, the thief, and Goro. After wishing him luck and making him promise to stop by more often, Ren boarded the Yamanote for Shibuya to visit a shop he hadn't entered in more than three years.

 

* * *

 

When he arrived at Untouchables, the hum of the green neon sign greeted him louder than he remembered it ever being. Before going in, he looked at the store front to see the windows covered still with metal blinds. A nostalgic bell  jingled when he opened the door, and inside, Munehisa Iwai sat back in his chair, feet on the counter as he read through a hobby magazine that Ren didn’t recognize.

The shop owner closed the magazine but left his feet where they were, clearly not interested in formalities with the history they shared between them, “Hey.”

“Hi.” Ren stood on the other side of the counter, studying its contents for what had changed. 

Iwai stood up and leaned over the counter when Ren squatted down to study the lower shelves. “Kurusu, been a while.” Their eyes met. “What can I get for you?”

Ren blinked, confused, standing up straight to be level with his former employer. “It’s Ren.”

“You’re going by that name again?” He pulled a pastel green lollipop from his mouth to gesture in his direction. If it were any other grown man holding it, Ren would have been taken aback, but he had seen the box in the back that was labeled as ‘ammo’ but actually contained another hundred lollipops of various flavors. 

“Yeah,” Ren looked around the room a moment with his eyes alone, his feet firmly planted in front of Iwai. He mentally catalogued their previous meetups, and finally asked,". . . Iwai, when was the last time we saw each other?" 

"About two months ago,” he answered with an impatient look.

"You're sure?" Ren tested.

"You don't remember?" Iwai shot back, now incredulous.

Ren composed himself with contradictions; curious with his questions and impassive towards their answers, "You said, ' _ You're going by that name again _ ?' as if I haven't been. What name was I going by?"

"Akira Kurusu, was it?" his hand rubbed at his neck, right over his tattoo. Ren recognized that he was catching on; someone or something didn’t belong. "Are you going to explain what's going on?"

Ren remained serious, helpfully answering Iwai’s questions with more questions, "When did I ask you to start calling me by that name? Can you remember?"

"Uh yeah, that April . . . of 2017, after you got out."

Ren frowned, reaching for the fringe of his hair as he arranged the timeline in his head, "That was almost four years ago, but we’ve seen each other since then.”

“Yeah, we’ve met at the diner or at Kaoru’s baseball tournament that one time. You said that if you came to the shop I should call you Akira Kurusu.”

“You’re right,” Ren sighed behind the protection of his glasses, “I haven't been here since then.”

“But you have been. I’ve gotten you those USPs. Oh, and the Glaucas.” He bit down on his lollipop, and the crunch of the hard candy was loud enough to punctuate the epiphany.

His thief purchased and used literal weapons.

But on what? Or, rather, on who? 

“No, I haven’t needed anything like that since 2016. It was necessary when the Phantom Thieves were operating, but I haven't needed it since.”

Iwai flicked the candyless stick into the wastebin behind the counter. "What is this?"

Ren didn’t meet his eyes, seeing instead the people that were being stolen from him during his years of neglect by a sly, dangerous thief that shared his face. "That person wasn't me."

"What?"

Ren went silent, trapped in the memories he never made. Four years. This doppelganger had been with Iwai, with Chihaya, and with . . . Akechi. More than four years. He'd lived with him and loved him. They'd made a life together, built a home together, forged bonds with a whole new cast of characters . . . or the same in some cases, all while he had done nothing but watch the months go by like quiet, fallen leaves in winter that never quite reached the ground.

Kurusu Akira had stolen four years of his life. He'd stolen four years Ren could have spent loving Goro.

"Amamiya?"

"I'm sorry. I have to go." He was halfway out the door, hand still on the door knob, when Iwai protested.

"Hey, what kind of trouble are you in this time?" It wasn't accusatory; he'd been asking to help, and Ren knew that. But, all the same, he exited without a word, the frigidity of winter wrapping around him as he made his way towards the station.

 

**Ren-kun, meet me at this address next Sunday at 9am if you can.**

 

His thumbs flew across the surface of his phone.

 

**Sure, thanks Hifumi. See you then.**

 

* * *

 

A week had passed since he’d confessed to Soumei Goro in the Meijiro Gardens. Since then, they’d texted back and forth daily about everything but anything of substance. He now knew that Goro loved sweets, particularly anything strawberry flavored or with strawberries in them, he enjoyed his job and had actually won a few small competitions before when creating custom cocktails, and one of his deep, dark secrets was that he loved tragic ghost stories that made the audience feel very empathetic for the ghosts. He said he cried more from watching good horror movies than he ever did from dramas.

Catharsis.

He could see why Akechi Goro may have craved that feeling, why he, too, may have carried the same secret, sympathetic love for sad ghosts, but there was no way to know now. 

Soumei Goro hadn't brought up the past since that night in Ikebukuro, and after he'd asked Ren to not speak of it, Ren kept his word and also refused to bring it up. He couldn't risk it, anyway. Anything that may push Goro away in any shape or form was strictly off limits.

The week had gone by with an uptick in warm temperatures and air that smelled of florals that weren’t in season. He focused more of his time on studying and made time for the kids at the shelter. Even Subaru had claimed that he was ‘ _ too happy _ ’ and ‘ _ extra annoying _ ’ that week. Goro had entered into this life once more, and with him, he found purpose in everything he did. He took care in the way he dressed himself, how he spoke to others, and even how he managed his time-- a good habit he had fallen out of since his second year of high school. Labeling it ‘ _ impossible _ ’ that there could be any other reason for his improvement, he often sent Goro random messages of gratitude.

 

**Thanks for meeting me last week.**

 

**Thank you for calling me today.**

 

**Thank you.**

 

Goro had sent a selfie that included a plate of decorated pancakes, and Ren had made it his lock screen in seconds. He couldn’t tell if he were more impressed by how well Goro did his makeup or how well the pancakes maintained their stance on the plate even though they were practically sideways in the photo.

His pleasant mood had carried him through until today when he’d met with both Chihaya and Iwai to learn that the person who had stolen Goro from him had stolen his confidants just the same.

Surely it wasn’t possible that he’d steal his friends, the thieves, from him, too?

He was sitting on the couch in Haru's living room, scrolling back through texts Goro had sent him since they'd met last, when Haru finally came home.

He stood up and she went to hug him as she always did when he showed up unannounced in her home. She’d given him the gate code years ago, and he made it a habit to show up randomly when he couldn’t be alone.

“Good evening, Ren,” she greeted him fondly. Haru was in a suit that complimented her figure: a pencil skirt with a slit in the back. Her hair was down, long and wavy past her shoulders. When she embraced him, he could feel that her clothes were cold with December’s chill and her hair was weighted with early morning dew.

He’d lost track of time. It was already one am. “I’m sorry; it’s late.”

When she didn’t let go or respond, he knew his apology was unnecessary. He knew from the way her grip tightened that she probably needed a visit from him. He knew that she was probably grateful he was here more than anything else. Over the years, they had learned each other’s body language quite well, and from her reaction now, today had been just as hard for her.

She didn’t want to be alone, either. 

Haru pulled away despite her obvious reluctance, and she took his hands as they both sat down on the couch in the living room.

“Turn around.”

She did so, and he helped her with her jewelry as if participating in some intimate, learned ritual. She had a barrette in her hair, a pair of earrings, and a necklace on. He dropped them lightly to the coffee table in a neat pile while she turned around. He removed her bracelets next, and she removed her single ring-- one from her mother.

After that, she smiled at him, sad and exhausted, and they leaned back into the couch together. Haru tucked herself beneath his arm and rested her head on his chest. To anyone else’s eyes, they likely looked like a couple, and Ren knew that, but between them, they were just close friends. She leaned on him, and he, well, he came to her when loneliness suffocated him into submission. The difference was that she shared. She shared with him what hurt her, what made her cry, what she loved and hated, and all of her experiences in between. He never shared anything of consequence. He never let her see inside him except to say, “I was feeling lonely.”

“Me, too,” she said softly.

“Work?” he asked.

“Yes, but, I’ve been worried about you.”

“I’m sorry.” And, he was. He’d been selfish the night of the anniversary, which is what he assumed she was addressing.

“It’s okay,” she said softly, sounding like she meant it but too tired to be thoughtful of her tone. “Futaba told us you were with the kids.”

“Yeah.” He had seen Subaru briefly that night, but he hadn’t been there more than an hour.

“I’m happy you weren’t alone. It was good to see the others,” she buried herself closer to him, seeking warmth. He pulled the throw blanket down from the back of the cough and draped it over her.

“I’m glad.” He didn’t ask how they were. He needed to hear that from them. It would force him to get in touch, which was what he needed to do. After hearing he had a twin who had already paraded around as him to his other confidants, he needed to speak to his friends to be sure he hadn’t already visited them, too. He changed the subject. “I came to tell you good news.”

She pulled away, sitting up beside him to wrap the blanket around herself completely, “Well, then?” She was smiling, hopeful, her eyes sparkling the way they did when she showed genuine warmth. He swore there were tiny embers in her irises that lit up when she smiled like that. Aside from Futaba, she had aged the most in the last four years. Though she still had the energy and optimism of back then, she looked little like her seventeen-year-old self.

Everything between them, when he visited, was intimate and comfortable, but Ren knew Haru was getting something from their interactions, their relationship, even, that he was not. He couldn’t be sure what it was exactly, but they made each other happy when they could be together like this, and for now, that was what mattered.

He took her hands. “I don’t think you have to worry anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

Ren let go of her and fell back into the couch, a smile slipping across his face without his permission. He covered it with his arm, containing his happiness to put her first,  “I’m sorry for the other night.”

She looked at him curiously, not quite suspicious but with her interest piqued, “You mean the anniversary of Goro’s death three weeks ago?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Futaba said you were at the shelter.” He could hear the conclusions she was drawing but not daring to say aloud.

He didn’t remove his arm from his over his face, “Yeah, I was for a little while, but then I went out.”

“Oh?”

“And I met someone.”

“That’s . . . good.”

“Yeah.”

He felt her weight shift in the couch cushions and playfully fought back when she pounced, pulling his arms away from the joy in his eyes and the smile on his lips. They laughed until something cut her short, and she looked down at him with a small smile, “I’m happy for you.” 

She sat up, and he followed her, freely showing the joy Goro had brought into his life with a gentle warmth in his cheeks.

“What are they like?”

“Perfect.”

She chuckled, "Good, then."

"Yeah." He couldn’t say more. He wasn’t ready to.

Goro was perfect in his eyes, but perfect had shot Haru’s father dead, so, now was not the time.

"What about you?"

"What do you mean?" she looked away and played with the ends of her hair, a habit she’d picked up since it’d grown long.

"When are you going to meet someone?"

She shook her head and smiled, "That's not at the top of my agenda,” and she resumed her position beside him, so he could no longer see her expression, “Besides, . . . I have you."

“I'm not dependable," Ren admitted easily. He could only be depended upon for disappointment nowadays, but it would be at the top of his list of areas of improvement. He had to become a dependable person if Goro needed him to rely on.

"Perhaps not, but I’m grateful anyway,” Haru chimed, relaxing beside him.

On the couch, they fell asleep like that while watching a Haru-approved horror movie with a Ren-requested sad ghost story.

 

* * *

 

“Akira?” the teen turned around with a groan, squinting his eyes in the harsh light as he tried to clear his vision.

Ren had never seen him before. He’d entered the room to catch up with Subaru, but midway through his weekly nagging over grades, the new kid, who he thought was asleep, had turned around. He swallowed upon hearing the name. This was his chance staring him in the face in the form of a beat-up teenager. 

From Chihaya, he’d heard that they looked identical, that he was charming, a liar, and a shitty boyfriend. From Iwai, he’d learned his full name, that he dealt in something illegal, and that he’d been at least attempting to pose as him for four years-- he’d been around at least since he’d defeated Yaldabaoth with the Phantom Thieves.

So his thief was dangerous but charismatic? Reckless but aware? He hadn’t felt like that in a long time. He wasn’t sure he’d ever feel that way again.

But, he could certainly fake it, “What?” 

“Are you okay?” the teen reached out to him, and Ren let him take his hands. “I didn’t know he was gonna be there. You gotta believe me. I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay now.”

The teen sat up slowly, still very concerned. “I heard gunshots. Are you hurt?”

“I’m okay,” Ren replied, eyes softening a bit from the teen’s obvious display of loyalty, “What about you?”

“I’m here, which I guess is better than back with Keisuke’s group, but--” He cut himself off, eyes shifting over to look at Subaru a moment before staring back at Ren.

“It’s gonna be okay,” Ren promised, remembering that making his team comfortable and keeping their spirits up was probably his most important job back then. He didn’t have to unpack what that said about him now.

“You have a plan?” He still hadn’t let go of his hands. His voice lowered to a whisper, his eyes deserapte with prayer, “I promise you I didn’t know. I had no idea.”

Ren gave the teen’s hands a squeeze before pulling his own away, “Hey, I said it’s okay. I said I was going to help, and I will.”

“Thank you,” the teen replied looking more emotional than Ren was prepared for.

“I’ll contact you, but not here. We can’t talk about it here, okay?”

He nodded, “I understand. Where should I meet you?”

“I’ll find you,” Ren promised, “In the meantime, rest-up here.”

“Got it,” the teen smiled at him, relieved.

“Good,” he messed up his hair and the teen immediately pushed him away, laughing and cursing under his breath. Whoever his thief was, he had earned the trust of this kid.

“Thanks, Akira.”

Ren smirked, “Don’t mention it.”

Satisfied, the teen lay back down in bed, turning his face towards the wall to try and get some sleep. Sighing soundlessly, he turned around to see Subaru gawking at him.

He rolled his eyes and walked by him to exit the room, whispering as he passed, “Upstairs.”

In the hallway, Ren turned around to see that Subaru had followed him, sketchbook in hand. 

“What was that all about?” 

It wasn’t until they were in what used to be the children’s play area that Subaru finally spoke. They stood in what was now a sort of makeshift classroom with three large tables and a bunch of chairs with bookshelves lining the walls filled with various textbooks and study guides. He sat on one of the tables, setting his sketchbook beside him, and Ren pulled out a chair to slouch in.

“I’m not sure.”

“Akira?” Subaru’s suspicion wasn’t masked with age or politeness. He clearly just wanted a story. 

“There’s someone in Shibuya that shares my face,” Ren replied, deciding he’d give him at least that to chew on.

“What? Like a doppelganger?” Subaru pulled the pencil from behind his ear and picked up his sketchbook. 

“Maybe?” 

“That’s so cool!”

Ren shook his head, hoping his own monotone would calm Subaru’s excitement, “No, it’s not.” Subaru’s smile fled, but he still appeared anxious when Ren asked, “What do you know about that kid?”

“First of all, his name is Miyama Makoto. He’s in a gang,” he replied, smile returning, “Or, at least, he was in a gang,” he corrected.

“Why?”

He rolled his eyes impatiently, “Because it’s easier? He doesn’t have any family. He liked working, actually, and the shelter doesn’t let you do that, so he got kicked out for it.”

Ren had heard of it happening before. As the kids got older, some of them would break rules that the institution had for them mostly due to legal issues and concerns. If they break enough rules enough times, the shelter has to let them go for fear of a federal audit shutting them down. “What kind of work?” If it was something he had to escape, then how was Ren’s thief involved?

Subaru shrugged, “I don’t know, but it was probably illegal.”

Ren found that to be obvious but he let Subaru have it, “So he was in the gang before he left then?”

“I dunno.” Another shrug.

Perhaps a different angle would work. “When did he leave here?”

“Two years ago?” Subaru flipped his notebook open and began moving the pencil across the page. The air went still a full minute before he added, “Anyway, you lied to him. He thinks you’re someone else.”

“I will help him,” Ren made another promise he probably couldn’t keep.

Subaru looked up from his drawing, “How?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Can I help?”

“No.”

Subaru flipped his sketchbook closed and slammed it on the table beside him, “I knew you weren’t just some nerdy college kid!”

Ren struggled to keep up with the non-sequitur.

Subaru hopped off the table and put his pencil back behind his ear, “You’ve got this like, really mysterious side.”

Ren shook his head, tugging absently at his bangs, “If only you showed this much enthusiasm towards your Physics homework.”

And then Subaru went off like a rocket, just as fervent and just as fast, “No really, what do you do? Do you work for the yakuza? Are you an agent for the government? You said you have a doppelganger, so like, are you a clone? Were you a government experiment?”

Ren smirked to keep from smiling, “Nope, I’m just a person with good intentions.” A familiar tone interrupted them, and Ren pulled his phone from his pocket to see a message from Ryuji.

 

**Hey man, busy tomorrow? We should go running. I run around the Imperial palace every sunday morning starting at Otemachi station**

 

**Sorry, can’t**

 

He pocketed his phone with a frown. He had to meet Hifumi tomorrow. Otherwise, he would have said yes. Feeling guilty, he pulled out his phone to shoot a second text before silencing it and pocketing it again.

 

**I’m busy but let’s do it next week? Or the week after? Just can’t make it tomorrow.**

 

“Who was that?” Subaru asked.

“Subaru . . .” Ren sighed.

The teen scoffed, “What? This is like, a really great distraction.” He smiled, his fist over his chest like some militant in a recent anime, “Make me your apprentice! We can fight crime!”

“What’s gotten into you?” Ren blinked.

“I’ll get closer to Makoto. I’ll try to learn things about your doppelganger, okay?”

Ren moved to sit on the edge of his chair, “Subaru, no. It could be really dangerous . . .”

“I knew it!” he clapped his hands as if he’d just won a bet Ren had no idea he was in on.

There was only one conclusion, “Because of the gang activity; I’m not dangerous.”

“Okay, okay,” he went on the defensive, “but I’m like, gonna include this in the manga I write about you.”

Knowing anyone thought he was worthy of a manga actually made him laugh, but once he recovered, he realized he could either help Subaru or let him risk everything on his own. “Do you know any self-defense?”

“Do I look like a fighter? My only weapon is the sharp end of my pencil,” he pointed to it beside his forehead, and it did nothing to help his case. Ren could think of a number of ways a sharp pencil could be deadly.

“ . . . Can you throw darts?” It was all Ren was good at now. Perhaps he could still shoot, but he hadn’t shot a gun in four years, and he’d made no attempt to get a license. He had also learned the hard way that his abilities regarding knives in the metaverse didn’t exactly transfer over to the real world. Sure, he knew how to hold them and use them well as long as they remained in his hands, but he couldn’t aim for shit. However, when Sojiro had gotten a dartboard for Leblanc three years ago, Ren learned quickly enough to get creative. His aim was perfect now . . . with darts, but he still didn’t make much of an impact throwing knives. 

“I think you want to ask me if I throw them well?” Subaru countered.

Hand to hand combat it was, then.  He could teach Subaru a few things just in case. Even if getting closer to Makoto didn’t put him in harm’s way, a little self-defense knowledge was good for anyone. “Meet me on the roof in an hour, and don’t say a word of this to the others. In fact, if someone sees you heading up, don’t even come.”

Subaru grinned brilliantly, his imagination clearly taking him outside of reality, “This is gonna be insane.”

 

* * *

 

**CloverGirl:** been a week and still nothing

**CaptainKitto:** he just shot my invite down for tomorrow

**Queen:** I wonder what that was about?

**BishoujoKaito:** He visited Morgana and I.

**BishoujoKaito:** He just showed up unannounced, I mean. 

**BishoujoKaito:** He just does that sometimes.

**CloverGirl:** whatd he say

**Queen:** how was he?

**BishoujoKaito:** Happy?

**CaptainKitto:** ok ?????

**BishoujoKaito:** Morgana wanted to say that he agrees with what Futaba said a few days ago. He’s acting strange. 

**BishoujoKaito:** I don’t think it’s strange exactly, but it’s different. 

**BishoujoKaito:** He said he met someone.

**4theaesthetic:** In general or of romantic interest?

**CaptainKitto:** wow, feelin’ kinda left out

**CloverGirl:** same

**Queen:** What else did he say?

**BishoujoKaito:** He said he’d be okay now. His words. 

**BishoujoKaito:** And I think it’s a romantic interest @4theaesthic

**4theaesthetic:** he recognized that his mental health has been subpar

**Queen:** but he thinks one person can fix that?

**CloverGirl:** tbh hate to go there but if the mystery person snot Akechi then like who could possibly make him say that

**Queen:** It could be someone that reminds him of Akechi?

**BishoujoKaito:** I hadn’t seen him that hopeful in a while.

**CloverGirl:** jelly

**CaptainKitto:** same

**Queen:** I’ll try inviting him out next.

**BishoujoKaito:** Good luck to you!

**Queen:** Thanks!

**CloverGirl:** anyone want a burger

**Queen:** I’ll get one with you.

**CloverGirl:** <3

**Queen:** <3

**CaptainKitto:** so after the two of you can come running with me

**CloverGirl:** out

**Queen:** no, thanks

**CaptainKitto:** Yusuke? Haru?

**4theaesthetic:** I’d rather not.

**BishoujoKaito:** I’m kind of busy, Ryuji, sorry.

**CaptainKitto:** yeah whatever

**CaptainKitto:** Futaba?

**CaptainKitto:** Hey, Futaba?

**Queen:** not tonight I guess?

**BishoujoKaito:** It’s good to see her in here at all. We’ve been really lucky.

**CloverGirl:** yeah, let’s not screw it up by inviting her to go running of all things Ryuji

**CaptainKitto:** your body is all you have man, staying healthy is important

**HoneyGG:** i exercise

**HoneyGG:** my right to say fuck running i’ll run when i’m dead

**4theaesthetic:** I believe the correct expression is ‘i’ll sleep when I’m dead’.

**HoneyGG:** no one asked you, Inari

**CaptainKitto:** its cool, damn, don’t come to me when the zombie apocalypse happens

**CloverGirl:** dude, we won’t we’d go to Haru’s

**BishoujoKaito:** I’m honored.

**CaptainKitto:** i get your point


	4. Chapter 4

The first night he’d come home to an empty apartment, he’d been able to convince himself that Goro was out with friends he didn’t have. The second night, he’d been able to convince himself that Goro was just stuck with a busy week at work. The third night, he’d been able to convince himself that it had all been a dream. It was on the fourth night that he screamed, and on the fifth that he’d been unable to sleep. By the sixth, he’d prayed to a false god, and by the seventh, he’d sold his soul all over again.

But Goro still hadn’t come home.

Akira had never had his own power to begin with, but maybe this time, that would be what it took.

He stood outside the bar in Shibuya where Goro worked, however, Goro worked events consistently during the holiday season, so when he didn’t see him here the last six nights, he wasn’t surprised. Whether mixing for some rich debutant or snobby celebrity, Goro shined best when he was hired specifically for his skills in mixology, a talent Akira had never thought the ex-detective would possess. 

Akira found himself inside and face to face with the single person who occupied his thoughts above all others. Had Goro’s hair always been golden? Were his lashes always so long? And his lips, did they always appear so soft? Were they always begging to be sucked and bitten and--

“What are you doing here?” 

Stunned, he sat down on a stool and noticed that he was the literal only customer there. He knew seven was early for a crowd, but the bar was empty. Did they stop serving alcohol? Was this a national day of mourning? Was he actually dreaming? He looked back to his boyfriend, his eyes struggling to pull away from pink lips to mahogany eyes, “I’m allowed to get a drink at a bar.” 

He remembered the time he and Goro had been here alone. It was in the middle of off hours and Goro had forgotten something-- he couldn’t remember what now-- and he’d gotten the key to pick it up. They were supposed to grab it and then go; they had plans to have dinner together and enjoy a much-needed proper date. Instead, Akira had ended up fucking Goro on the smooth, lacquered wood of the bar top. It had been wild and quick, but then sentimental in the afterglow when Akira had relaxed on top of him. Of course, Akira had to ruin it all by forgetting where he was. He’d turned over to lay beside Goro only to literally fall the meter and a half to the concrete with no stools to break his fall. Goro had been more concerned with cleaning the blood off the floor to avoid explaining himself than Akira’s actual injury. That broken nose had been so worth it though.

The loud knock of solid glass on wood in front of him startled him out of his thoughts. Goro had slammed a highball glass in front of him as if throwing down the gauntlet. “Well?”

Instead of coming up with something clever to say to remind Goro of their public fornication in the very spot between them now, he simply said, “Lemon Chuhai.”

“With vodka?” 

The edge in Goro’s voice had enough ethanol to make Akira drunk for days. He tried not to let it show that Goro had such power over him, at least not now. If Goro felt he had the upper hand, he may never surrender. “If I’ve changed, it hasn’t been that much.”

Goro muttered something along the lines of ‘ _ you’re allowed to be wrong _ ’ and began making the drink. As he did, Akira observed him quietly, slouching over the bar in hopes that he would meld into it and remain there forever, or at least trapped in that afternoon when Goro loved him unconditionally, and, as soon as they’d left the bar spotless, he’d taken him to the clinic and waited on him hand and foot the rest of the day like he was a fucking prince. 

But, if Goro really did love him unconditionally, then they wouldn’t be fighting, right?

He hated conflict.

Well, this kind of conflict. 

Akira had no trouble with a physical fight, but when it came to relationships, it was always easier to let things slide. Goro didn’t need to know he was hurt; he’d just get upset. In fact, Goro didn’t need to know anything that would hurt him: case and point-- his father, his childhood, etc. He could remember the moment he’d realized Goro’s memories were gone. He’d gone from horrified to elated so quickly. It meant that Goro didn’t know him, sure, but it also meant that Goro wouldn’t have to suffer.

And that was all Akira wanted, really.

He just wanted Goro to live his life the way he wanted to, free from guilt or pain or baggage. Maybe it meant stretching the truth here and there, but Akira very, very rarely ever got caught. It was only when he did that they ended up in situations like-- well, like this one. And, truth be told, nothing had been as bad as this.

They’d fought to the point of violence, but Goro had never left before.

“Your drink.”

Akira grabbed his wrist before Goro let go of the glass, “Take a break.”

“Akira . . . “ Goro warned him, eyes narrowed in a subtle threat of things to come if he did not let go.

“Please,” So, he let go, “Come outside with me?” So much for not allowing Goro to see right through him.

“No.”

“Okay, I’ll wait. I’ll wait here until you’re ready.”

“You’ll be waiting quite a while.”

“As long as it’s for you.”

Goro rolled his eyes and attempted to busy himself about the bar. Akira watched him try to come up with menial tasks to keep himself busy before giving up and walking back over, “Ten minutes.”

Akira nodded. Challenge accepted.

Outside, Akira noticed that though it was already dark outside, few people were in the streets. Likely, people were shopping or still getting ready before heading out to party in the Shibuya nightlife. He looked away from the blinking lights to see Chihaya’s face on a flier on the ground. She was offering a discount this week. He should visit. Maybe she could tell him how long it would be before he died of loneliness without Goro like some fucking rabbit.

“Well?”

Goro’s voice escaped his mouth in a cloud of white breath. He was so adorable when he was cold. He’d cross his arms to stay warm and simultaneously put up a front. Where was the scarf he’d gotten him last year? It was long enough to mummify him or at least use for bondage play, either of which Akira thought useful at the moment.

“Please come back, Goro.” Ten minutes was long enough to get to the point and then argue for another eight minutes before erupting into groveling and gross sobbing for the last two.

“Why?” Goro crossed his arms as if on cue, looking both stubborn and bored at the same time, but not succeeding for a second in hiding that he was cold.

“You’re the reason for everything I do.” Life had taught Akira that ‘ _ fake it till you make it _ ’ was basically the one, true mantra of the eternal fuck-ups of his generation, a category he most certainly fell in to. Maybe if he just kept talking, Goro would be moved by his persistence?

“Oh?”

“Yes,” Akira struggled with words like a post-stroke victim with aphasia; he spoke slowly and his words came out on crumpled paper in bleeding ink-- illegible and broken. “You’re the reason . . . . I’m here, and . . . that I do . . . the work . . . I do.”

Goro only tightened his arms around himself, hugging tighter as if to point out that Akira wasn’t allowed to, “Oh? I don’t remember asking you to become some wreckless vigilante.”

Akira missed his glasses.

“But you wanted . . . to help others.” In the beginning, Goro had been so insistent that they be a force of good, a single, unified symbol of justice. “We wanted to . . . do it together.”

“Yes, you’re doing a wonderful job as a member of a  _ team _ .”

A team. That’s what they’d sworn to be, hadn’t they?

_ They’d missed the train in Shinjuku and started walking back to their apartment in Naka-Meguro. Less than a year had passed since they’d met, but their relationship had already been well-enough established that as soon as they heard a woman scream in a nearby alleyway, they didn’t even have to exchange glances before they took off to help. No corner of Tokyo was dark enough to hide what the man had been attempting. Together, they’d fought him off, Goro shocked with the muscle memory that kicked in both literally and figuratively during the fight. Akira himself had fed on the adrenaline like a drug, beating the man just long enough to realize he wasn't a shadow that would be disappearing into the floor once he had been knocked out. The woman had thanked them, attempted to pay them, even, and that had been the moment that Goro had turned to Akira with a smile he knew he'd killed for. _

_ 'There's nothing more satisfying, don't you think?' He'd asked when they'd arrived home. _

_ 'Than the gratitude of others?' Akira assumed. Afterall, they certainly hadn't taken the money. _

_ 'Than knowing that evil has lost and that good has prevailed.' _

_ 'Okay, every shonen protagonist ever.' Akira couldn't laugh when he met Goro's eyes which resembled those of a person who knew too much to hate but not enough to lose hope. _

_ 'I wouldn't mind that though,’ he spoke sincerely, transparently baring his heart for Akira to scorn or cherish, ‘I'm sure you feel the same way.' _

_ 'Mind what?' _

_ 'Being a hero.' _

_ 'If it's with you,' he'd said back then, 'I wouldn't mind it at all.' _

“There are just . . . some things . . . that are too dangerous for you to be . . . involved in." This Goro didn't know enough about death; he didn't know enough about his own death. He couldn't be trusted to be careful, to be restrained, or to be safe. "I’m trying to protect you.”

“I’m just-- I don’t even know what to say. Do you hear yourself?”

“It’s the truth.” Akira's trip down memory lane must have been therapy enough for his voice; the foundations needed for this assertion returned to him ten-fold.

“I don’t even know why I came out here. I knew it. I knew this would just be the same bullshit all over again. Go ahead and use ME," Goro finally let go of his his physical defenses to gesture a hand over his chest dramatically to emphasize himself, “as an excuse for your own reckless and selfish behavior. You’ve been doing it for years. Literal years! I just didn’t see it. I didn’t realize.”

Akira watched him with the fascination of a child during an R-rated film: distant, hearing the words and seeing the images, but understanding almost none of it.

“You don’t understand. If I lost you, I--”

“Shut up!" Goro cut him off, "I don’t want to hear it again! You’ll just remind me of what an idiot I’ve been deluded by your charade and fantasy. You live your life as if you’re still traipsing around the metaverse stealing hearts and what-have-you. I see your excuses coming every single time.”

“Goro, you--” He reached out.

Goro stepped back, “I have to get back to work. If I hear any leads, I'll be sure NOT to let you know, since you've decided we can no longer work together.”

“Hey,” Akira grabbed at Goro's arm as he turned away.

Goro stared daggers straight into and through his very soul, jerked his arm free, straightened the cuffs on his sleeves, and went back inside.

Finally, the begging kicked in, “Just come home. Please? Please!”

Goro didn't turn around.

"Please, Goro!"

Fuck. Fuck!

Akira rubbed the cold from his eyes and let hot, unshed tears saturate them. He could see it with his third eye: Goro’s arcana had reversed.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, um, excuse me?”

“Yes?” Goro turned around to see two women about his age staring up at him like they’d seen a ghost, which, upon a second thought, would not be too unreal considering a portion of the detective prince’s fans thought him to be dead.

“Oh my god!” the blonde yelled in English, causing a few heads to turn, including his own, but whereas they stared at her, he came face-to-face with a string of vending machines.

“Oh.” the brunette's surprise was more subdued, her right hand hovering in front of her mouth as if she'd just heard the insult of the century.

A few hurried apologies left them alone in an alley off the main street, and Goro fished for a pen on his person, so he could give them the signature they probably wanted before leaving him the hell alone.

“Akechi!” the blonde interrupted as soon as he pulled out the short, mini pen he’d found in his back pocket.

He sighed, his whole body deflating at the name. He figured it was that, but did she have to yell? Someone recognizing him as the TV persona has-been he used to be hadn't happened in months, but it still left him cringing the same way one would feel if someone published childhood journals and was expecting to meet someone just as equally wholesome and optimistic, “Ah, I’m afraid I no longer go by that name--”

A burning pain in his cheek sent his vision white and the two women temporarily escaped in little blurred, crystal versions of themselves, red eyed and steaming. He stared at the blinking lights of an arcade back on the main street before turning back to look the brunette in the eyes.

“Mako!” the blonde immediately pulled her back, arms around her like a straight jacket. Despite the distance created between them, however, the brunette's fiery glare still sent a stunned silence into Goro. He'd never met a fan who hated him before. He'd been under the impression that he'd gone out on a high note; the TV darling had gone missing whilst hunting the Phantom Menace just long enough that he'd been mourned and then forgotten.

“Why haven’t you reached out to Ren? Do you have any idea the scope of damage you’ve done?” Her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed, and he could faintly recall a nightmarish woman in a gray pantsuit and a stick up her ass. She’d been equal parts nuisance and threat in some bizarre version of Law and Order where, for some reason that only made sense in nightmares, his greatest fear had been his cell phone ringing.

Well, the name ‘Ren’ was clue enough. Now it all made sense. Goro sighed, frowned, and made a show of rubbing at his cheek in some poor attempt to garner sympathy and a well-deserved apology, “You’re misunderstanding the situation.”

The blonde let the brunette go and all but shoved a finger in his face, “Oh, misunderstanding the situation, huh? You were probably super selfish about it. Avoiding the cops or whatever! You couldn’t face your crimes or your guilt, right?”

“What?” Now he was genuinely confused. No one knew about what he did except Akira and the Phantom Thieves, but they were talking about Ren. And yet, they also knew that he'd been guilty of crimes he'd never been punished for?

“Don’t act all innocent. Ren’s been suffering for four years because of you--because you’re dead! And yet, here you are-- in the middle of Center Street, with a crepe in your hand!?” she glared at him, and then the crepe in his hand, and then him once more. Really, she was going to call out the crepe, too? He wasn’t allowed to enjoy sweets, either? What the hell had he done in the past that was so bad that people wanted to take crepes from him?

“First of all, I’m allowed to enjoy the crepe,” he took a deep breath when that statement startled her into silence, “Second of all, I don’t understand you. I met Ren for the first time a little over three weeks ago. You two really need to chill the fuck out and stop jumping to conclusions.”

“Chill out?! You--”

“Wait a minute,” the brunette cut the blonde off, “For the first time?”

“That’s what I said,”  _ smartass _ was a language he’d be fine with speaking to someone who slapped first and asked questions later.

“Akechi--”

“I told you I don’t go by that name.” he corrected, leaning against the vending machine because this conversation felt more like a 100-meter hurdle race than anything else.

“Why not?” the brunette asked, quiet, new.

When he met their eyes again he realized he finally had their attention. They were finally listening. Even still, he spoke slowly because even if you locked eyes with deer, it didn’t mean they wouldn’t irrationally bolt in front of you to their deaths for no reason at all. “I’m not . . . Akechi Goro. I--” Wait, if he had their attention, then that meant only one thing; it was his turn to investigate,  “What are your names?”

“You don’t know who we are?” the blonde blinked in shock as she pointed between them. The brunette's brow furrowed in contemplation, her lips a firm line. 

Goro put his free hand to his forehead and ran his fingers through his bangs before clarifying the situation completely, “You’re close to Ren? You don’t, like, want my autograph or something?”

“Hell no.” the blonde replied, likely far softer than she'd meant to.

“Then . . .”

“Spit it out,” the blonde prompted, stomping her foot in a childish way that aged her backwards at least a few years.

“You have a lot of explaining to do," the brunette added.

He’d watched enough of his old interviews and practiced plenty in the last four years to stick these two right where he wanted them. “Were you once members of the Phantom Thieves?” he asked, putting his hand on his hip and straightening his back to stand firmly over them, using every bit of his height to his advantage.

But instead of the horror at being caught he’d expected from them, the brunette’s expression was one of clear pitty while the blonde just stared back at him in wide, green-eyed wonder, “OMG, you don’t remember.”

Wow, if this was a Phantom Thief, he had questions for Akira. If she was this annoying in her 20’s, what had she been like as a kid?

“Ren knows you’re alive?” the other one asked.

Exasperated, he replied with a roll of his eyes, “Wow, that took you a while to process. Yes. Yes, we have met.” Maybe his voice held more venom than necessary, but one of them had just slapped him in the face. He was pretty sure he hadn't done anything to them personally to deserve that. He took another bite of his crepe only to frown down at it. Too much time had passed; it would be soggy by the time he got to the bottom now. Fucking great.

“But he didn’t tell us,” the blonde crumpled almost instantly, her body language begging her friend for a hug. The brunette put a hand to her cheek and smiled reassuringly at her.

Okay, scratch  _ friend _ .

“I don’t know what to say,” Goro helpfully ruined the moment.

The brunette turned towards him again, sliding her hand into her girlfriend's(?) in an unspoken promise of support he understood only because Akira had done the same a million times for him before, “I’m . . . not really sorry for hitting you.”

Wow, was he really that bad? Then or now? “Ok,” he looked expectantly in her direction, accompanying his look with all other tell-tale signs of impatience.

“Ok, look, just, Mako?” the blonde pulled the brunette to face her and then actually leaned in to whisper into her ear right in front of him.

The only reason Goro hadn't turned to leave was due to the possibility that they were actually Thieves, which he was pretty sure they were, and were therefore a source of information he'd never been able to tap. They went back and forth a few minutes, again, whispering to each other right in front of him, before they turned towards him together, and the blonde produced her phone out of nowhere, her Line QR code open and ready.

“Can we swap IDs? Or phone numbers if that's better for you?”

“ . . . Why?” They had to understand his suspicion. One of them had literally slapped him and the other had demanded to know why he wasn't in prison.

“You want to know about the time you can’t remember," the fierce brunette stared him down despite their differences in height. He would blame it on the nightmares.

“ . . . I do, actually," he admitted carefully, "I want to know more about the Phantom Thieves and about . . . the things I’ve done.”

The blonde made a display of apology, “Oh my god, I feel really bad. I didn’t realize you had amnesia. We can tell you, yes. We can. Right Makoto?”

The brunette, Makoto, nodded, “Yes . . . but in exchange, could you tell us where you’ve been all this time?”

That was . . . not exactly his place to say. Akira had insisted for the longest time on their discretion, that they were in hiding, that it was in  _ both _ of their best interests. He understood that in order to get information from them, they’d expect the same. He wasn’t on the best terms with Akira, but he also wished no harm on him in any way. He could just . . . play his cards carefully. Akira had taught him a thing or two when it came to gambling, anyway, so he was sure that would also work to his advantage.

“Can we do it in a few days? In a public place?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Yeah sure, that’s fine.”

Goro fished for his phone and managed to open it with his right hand, flashing his QR code for the blonde.

"Goro?" she asked hesitantly while she added notes to his profile.

"Yeah,” What was in a name if you technically didn’t exist? “Soumei Goro. And you are?"

"Niijima Makoto."

"Takamaki Ann."

"Niijima--" He shut his eyes, his hand immediately massaging his forehead. One day, fact and fiction would be easier to distinguish from each other. One day, all of this would make sense. Going by his headache, today was not that day.

"Ake- I mean Soumei-san?" Takamaki looked up at him, her voice softer than it had been the entire conversation. 

He looked at Niijima instead, swallowing air, "Sorry, do you have a sister?"

"No.”

"Oh, okay. Sorry about that. Well then, Niijima-san, Takamaki-san, see you around,” he turned to leave, relief sweeping through him as he walked back into the crowded Center Street at Shibuya’s heart. 

As he turned the corner, he heard, " . . . See you," but he didn’t look back to acknowledge it. His past was a tricky thing-- a macabre dance pulling him in and out of the graveyard of forgotten memories and nightmares that followed him long after he’d woken from them. At times, he loved following the music and meeting new partners for another waltz, but at others, he wished he’d never stepped inside the wretched masquerade.

 

* * *

 

“This is where you live?” The door swung open, hitting a wall much too quick, to reveal a desk, a closet, and a bed all along the same wall on the right. To the left, across from the bed, were two high shelves littered with drinks and foods that didn’t need to be refrigerated: microwavable rice, various soups that only required hot water, some teas, rice crackers, and a set of high quality Japanese sweets. Goro watched Ren put his bag on the chair of the desk and noticed that the white desk was completely covered in notebooks, textbooks, a stack of what looked like library books, a laptop, and a hot water kettle. From there, Ren walked the short distance to the ceiling high balcony door that acted as a window. The outside view was just as suffocating as the dorm room; nothing could be seen from where Goro stood but another wing of the same dormitory.

“Technically? I also stay at a place in Yongenjaya and another one in Shinjuku.” The cool air rushed in and stole the stale taste in the room away within seconds. Ren shut the door again, but left it open a crack, enough to let the small space breathe but not wide enough for the wind to get through.

“You have three homes?” Goro blinked, still mystified by the close quarters. Without meaning to make a show of it, he stood by the desk, and, facing the window, he stretched his arms out in either direction only for both of them to hit the wall immediately.

“Homes?” Ren shook his head and shrugged, “I guess?” He moved over on the bed so that Goro could sit down.

“Which one do you like best?” Goro decided not to take the invitation immediately. From where he was standing, he could study the items on the desk and on the bookshelves above what was likely the closet.

“The one in Yongen?” Goro didn’t have to meet Ren’s eyes through glass to know that Ren was watching him. “No, actually, I like each of them for different reasons.” 

“This one?” he asked, feeling Ren consider him while he picked at the spines of the books on the desk.

“Privacy and convenience for class.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ren lean back against the wall and relax in his bed. “You study a lot here?”

A chime sounded, pulling Goro over to the desk to see Ren’s discarded phone with a waiting text message on the screen.

 

**So, you have to trap this enemy and then steal the treasure back? I’ll show you how. Meet . . .**

 

“Could you?” Ren sat up on the edge of the bed and reached out his hand lazily, clearly asking for the phone.

“Oh yeah.” Goro handed it over, knowing full well he’d been obvious in reading the screen. Still, he wouldn’t mention it if Ren wasn’t going to.

Less than a minute of Ren checking his messages and texting back passed before he tossed the phone into the pillow of the bed, “Sorry, my friend, and I, uh, play shogi together.”

“Shogi, huh?” It made sense. Almost. It could also very easily be bullshit. There were the ordinary and there were the eccentric, and Ren clearly fell into the eccentric category with his fake glasses, off-beat hobbies, and tendency to pull other men into purikura booths.

“Yeah, games of strategy are fun with the right company.” Goro noticed he sat up a little straighter, toward the edge of the bed again, his chin lifted up to get a better view of Goro. He wasn’t seriously checking out his ass while he looked at his collection of books was he?

No, that would be something Akira would do. Ren was the kind of person who’d demand everything said with the eyes and attempt to spin you a novella through eye-contact alone before he blatantly checked out someone’s ass with the full intent to get caught because he thought he was being cute.

“You mean if you are presented a challenge?” Goro watched his eyes knowingly, and of course, they met his own, smiling and sparkling in an effortless way that made Goro equal parts alert and enchanted-- a pathetic mess really. He did note another similarity that Ren shared with Akira; they were both competitive. Sure, he never played shogi or chess or even Words with Friends with Akira, but Akira was always trying to outdo others in an attempt to impress Goro. Looking back on it now, Goro recognized it as rather insecure.

“Maybe,” the other gave a telling little grin and it broke Goro from his thoughts.

Goro felt the air in the room shift, once empty and suffocating, then suddenly fresh and inviting. Ren held clear intentions for their time together here, but Goro had agreed to come anyway. On the one hand, this intimate extension to their date could make Akira very jealous, and no matter how much Goro would proclaim otherwise, he loved making Akira jealous. Part of it was the attention, but mostly, he loved Akira best when he was honest, wild to a fault, taking what he wanted and letting nothing stand in his way. Jealousy always served to show Goro that no matter who was involved, he’d always be wanted by Akira, and having that affirmation once and while, whether organic or not, was always welcomed. On the other hand, he had left Akira, but they hadn’t exactly broken their relationship; technically, he’d be cheating should he fulfill Ren’s obvious desires. 

“Anyway, yeah, I do study here,” Ren picked up from where they’d left off before the text message, “here or at a diner in Shibuya. Once in a while, I use the school library.”

“Do you enjoy school?” Looking back to the books, Goro, picked one up and began thumbing through it.

“Hahaha, you’re asking that before asking my major?” Ren leaned back on his hands on the bed, relaxing into the new energy between them.

“That is strange isn’t it? I’ve thought about school. As you know, I can’t remember how I felt about it. I think I do enjoy learning, but I’m not sure I’d like a classroom.” He shut the book definitively, set it back in a stack, and grabbed another one titled  _ Eve was Framed _ . Yes, he was baiting him. He considered it a test.

“That’s fair. You read a lot on your own?”

Well, good on Ren for passing with flying colors. Another difference between the two made itself known; at least Ren listened to Goro and respected his wishes.

“Yes, and I watch a lot of free lectures online.” He set down  _ Eve was Framed _ to pick up  _ Japanese Law Philosophies _ . “Wait, what  _ is _ your major, then?” All of these books about justice just made him feel worse about his own desires regarding Ren and the subsequent betrayal it would mean to Akira.

“Law.” Ren took off his glasses, shaking his head slightly before rubbing at his eyes, “Technically I’m double majoring.”

Goro scanned the rest of the titles before coming to a conclusion, “You’re studying public policy?”

“Yeah.”

Goro snorted inelegantly, setting the book down to cover his grin with a hand, “I honestly didn’t expect that.”

Ren laughed too, and Goro appreciated that he wasn’t hurt by his response. “Me neither, but here I am.” He shrugged with a smug humbleness that made him even more appealing in Goro’s eyes. “I have a friend in politics, so I have at least an internship on the way once I graduate.”

“That’s impressive.” Goro turned toward him and walked the two steps past the desk and the closet to observe the various knick-knacks on the headboard of his bed that also acted as a shelf of sorts.

“It’s not. It didn’t feel like a choice, exactly.”

Goro laughed at that, hearing the cliche for what it was, “Are you about to say you felt  _ called to act _ ?”

Pink colored Ren’s cheeks, and Goro smiled at how transparent he appeared; he couldn’t deny that the honesty was refreshing.

“What’s this?” he reached for a white chess piece that looked to have a crown on top, “You play chess?” The white king probably?

Ren looked away, turning his head in the direction of the balcony door, “I uh, I used to, yeah.” 

Goro observed him quietly, debating only briefling before pressing, “There’s only one piece.”

“It’s just a keepsake.”

Goro, regarding the lone ruler thoughtfully, brought the piece closer to his face to inspect it a final second before sitting down in the bed a comfortable distance from Ren, “You get nervous talking about the past, don’t you?”

“You requested that I don’t,” came his immediate reply.

“Does this chess piece have to do with me?”

Ren looked back to him, and, without a word, slowly removed his glasses and set them beside his discarded phone. Goro knew he should have seen Ren sitting beside him, but he looked so much like Akira then, he couldn’t help but look away, his eyes flying to the white king in the palm of his hand. “You have to see things from my perspective.” 

His past was a trap he couldn’t help but test the limits of; he knew the more he pecked at the bleeding carcass inside, the sooner the trap would spring and enclose him forever in a wire cage, but he couldn’t help but be hungry for it, drawn by the sweet smells and the way he imagined it tasted.

“Of course,” Ren replied quietly, a soft patience that made the moment even lighter. Goro watched as Ren’s fingers timidly slid up to the cuff of Goro’s right sleeve to slip inside and touch soft, warm skin. No longer struggling with the identity of the image in front of him, Goro turned toward him so that their knees touched on the edge of the bed.

“If you could say anything to Akechi Goro,” Goro inhaled and exhaled mechanically searching out Ren’s motives and intentions with the shifting of his eyes and the touch of his skin, “ . . . to the person I used to be, what would you say?”

Ren smiled, and in that moment, Goro once more saw his own image in his eyes: endearing, perfect, and infinitely deserving of his love. It felt like coming home like he had admitted to Ren before. It felt like the way Akira used to look at him even if only in a memory.

“It’s okay . . . to trust me.”

Goro leaned in to press his lips to Ren’s, eager to taste on his lips the same love that poured forth from his eyes. He had never tasted someone aside from Akira, and despite their near identical forms, Ren did taste new. He’d half expected Ren to taste the same; relief from anxiety he didn’t know he had flooded through him, and he relaxed into the kiss.

Ren pulled away, eyes dark and smile content.

Goro immediately wanted to keep that smile there, make it lewd and permanent, sticky even with something sweet. Remembering the chess piece in his left hand, he held Ren’s gaze as he raised the chess piece between them.

Ren only had to open his mouth slightly to encourage Goro’s follow-through. He raised the chess piece to Ren’s mouth, and as Ren closed his eyes, Goro began to slowly trace the other’s lips with the top end of the piece, going all around his mouth before stopping at the bottom. With his eyes still closed, Ren tentatively reached out to touch the piece with his tongue, wrapping around the piece slowly enough that Goro could move with it in tandem and even push the piece further back along his tongue.

A quiet moan escaped him, and when Goro pushed the piece back further, Ren closed his lips around it, the piece disappearing inside his mouth save for the base Goro still grasped. Another moan, louder this time, came from the back of his throat. Watching intently as his lust grew, Goro slowly pulled the piece out. Ren, with red beginning to creep up his face, opened his darkened eyes, half-lidded. Breathing deeply, they both regarded their open displays of lust cautiously. One small misstep would mean the end of things. They leaned forward together, meeting their lips halfway. As Ren opened his mouth to invite Goro in, Goro closed his eyes and the trap sprung.

_ Ren’s gaze hypnotic, his eyes filled with wonder and a fascination so deep, Goro had been sure in that moment that he’d never fill it. Ren would go on looking at him like that forever, like he was precious to the point of sanctity, paramount to his happiness, essential to his very breath, his life. _

_ “You’re so in love with me.” _

_ And then he’d gone on to swear his loyalty, his very pride if only it meant that Goro would accept him as he was because while he had control over his actions, he’d been made to feel this way, live this way-- loving Goro so completely. _

_ He laid there with Ren in his arms, staring up at the ceiling of an attic not meant for a living space. He counted the stars in the rafters, content to live in that moment forever because time moving forward only meant tragedy for them both. He could smell coffee and sex, taste Ren on his lips, and hear deep breaths as the other slept, wrapped around him so comfortably that Goro was able to trust the intimacy along with the words and actions of what came with it. _

“You feel it too, don’t you?”

Goro opened his eyes to the present, shock gripping him as Ren, now in his lap with his arms draped over his shoulders, stared back at him in wonder.

The sun was beginning to set, but Goro could still see the love in Ren’s eyes and the hope in his smile.

“I didn’t believe in souls until I met you-- until you died, and I was convinced half of mine was missing.”

Goro knew Ren wasn’t Akira; they couldn’t be the same person if Ren could say something like that with a straight face and not immediately follow it up with some perverted joke.

“Don’t talk about the past, Ren.” Goro chided, kissing his cheek and down his chin as his own arms wrapped around him for support, hands sliding up in opposite directions to feel everything they could along his back. 

“Sure,” Ren gasped, “Of course. That’s fine,” and he rolled his hips into his lap, leaning down to capture Goro once more in a kiss.

_ Goro’s heart was the loudest sound in the small interrogation room, and it threatened to echo off the walls and bounce around the room if Goro didn’t compose himself. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and raised his gun to a familiar head of hair.  _

_ Ren looked up, dazed but determined, bloodied and bruised, and with his eyes alone, he told him all over again the words he wanted to hear all his life. _

_ Goro squeezed the trigger, trembling, the person seated before him listing every reason love could end this in his silence. “This is where your justice ends.”  _

_ The shot sprayed red in ways Hollywood could never recreate. _

A hiss. Another kiss in his neck. A taste of blood. 

“Stop.” Goro pulled away, wiping at his mouth.

Ren nodded, moving out of his lap completely to sit beside him in the bed.

“I can’t.” He shook his head, watching the tiny bit of blood trickle down Ren’s neck. His button-shirt hung disheveled off his shoulders and his hair was a mess.

Ren wiped the blood away, “It’s okay.” He made it disappear somewhere on his dark jeans and smiled patiently. “And that’s okay,” Ren took his hands gently, holding them in his with their palms up. He rubbed at Goro’s wrists and spoke quietly as if raising his voice would shatter the miracle of the moment, “Let’s do this right. It’s about your boyfriend, right?”

Goro nodded, mystified, unsure if Akira had anything to do with what he was feeling at all.

“The last thing you need is guilt. I can wait as long as you need me to.”

“You have to see me as someone new.” He assumed it impossible for Ren because Ren didn’t respond to the demand at all, but instead pulled Goro into an embrace, pulling him down into the bed to hold him as they struggled to catch their breath and still their hearts.

Slowly, in the arms of Goro’s most familiar stranger, the day fell into night, and eventually, he let sleep take him, holding Ren’s hand and listening to his heartbeat as memories flashed in his mind. 

“I just can’t lose you again, okay?”

Goro said nothing, eyes closed, half-heartedly pretending he was still asleep.

“The fear of losing you . . . cancels everything else out.”

He couldn’t tell if it was a promise, a threat, or a plea, but he was sure that it felt dangerous, desperate, and so, so, vulnerable. 

The more time he spent with Ren, the less new it felt.

He wanted to ask about their relationship before. He wanted to learn about his past. He wanted to be a whole person with a history and a foundation, but--

The more he learned of his past, the more fear took hold of him. 

He knew he was asking the impossible from Ren, especially when he, himself, could not seem to confidently separate the two, most notably in his memories. 

Falling victim once more to a sleep riddled with memories indistinguishable from dreams, he questioned whether it was possible to love two people at the same time.

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” she called from behind him.

He pocketed his phone and turned around, unable to keep himself from smiling. He’d been anticipating this day the same way he would a plunge back into the metaverse: with equal amounts of dread and guilty excitement like, hey, fuck he might lose his life but at least it’d be fun and he’d have an excuse to reconnect with the past he’d all but stuck the middle finger to. 

"Hey, I got you something." The truth was he'd had it for years now. It had been in his first year before he'd quite realized everything he'd lost. After seeing the item in a UFO catcher in Shinjuku, he'd lost almost 2,000 yen getting it only to realize that he couldn't give it to Futaba anyway. Put simply, the gift was long overdue, and if anyone was going to appreciate it, it’d be her.

Futaba’s cheeks turned a shade of pink in the yellow glow of the streetlight as she pulled the item from the small bag he’d forced into her hands, “Hey, it’s a . . . . scrunchie? What?" She held it under the light, "Oh wow. It's the scrunchie from Phoenix Ranger Featherman S that was a collaboration with TAITO. They didn't even sell it in stores but--" She looked up at Akira as though she knew, as though she saw right through him, as though she saw Akira, and not Ren. He looked away.

She moved in front of him, angling her head to search him out with narrowed, suspicious eyes, "Did you mean to give this to me when it came out?"

Akira smirked, rubbing his bangs between his fingers while offering an innocent whistle; his mask stretched beyond his face and grew over him like a second skin he’d never shed. It made sense. Afterall, her hair was probably too short now for it to be of any use at all.

Futaba pushed her glasses up her nose, shoved the hair accessory back in the bag, and pointed at him with the ferocity of a certain defense attorney, her voice rising in pitch, “You’re like the father of a divorced child trying to reconnect after years of shame.” She raised her fists to her mouth to turn the moe up to max, “You forgot my birthday, Papa!”

Akira relaxed and, with equal dramatics, turned his palms up in front of him to plead his case, “But child, why don’t you love me? I got you the super deluxe version! It was the rare one with every character on it!”

“Noooo, Papa,” she threw her arms down at her sides in defiance, “I hate that stuff now. It’s not cool anymore. It’s all about the Phoenix Rangers Featherman V! V for Victory, Papa! Victorrryyy!"

Without thinking of the repercussions, he grabbed her by the shoulders and gently shook her, “Why won’t you let me love you?”

She shoved her open palm in his face to push him away, rubbing in her defiance, “Eat shit and diiiieeee!”

He laughed, letting his arms fall before withdrawing himself from her assault before he pulled her into a hug, “Hahaha, like that?” Feeling light, he smiled at her, soft and genuine.

“Something like that," she moved away more quickly than he would have expected. Her voice dropped in tone again, and she crossed her arms in front of her before tapping the toe of her boot into the cement.

Deciding that they didn't share the same feelings regarding what had just transpired, Akira changed the subject, “How was your week?”

“Not bad.” She toed at the cement some more before setting the small gift bag on the hill they were standing beside. Without another word, she began to climb the rocks beside it until she was on top, looking out at the rest of the park from above Akira. He felt challenged to a game of King of the Rock until he remembered that he was with Futaba and not Goro at the moment. Too bad. He totally could have taken her.

“Did you see Yusuke?” he ventured. Somehow her ‘safe-option not-boyfriend’ felt like a better topic of conversation at the moment.

“Yeah.” She clasped her hands behind her back, but continued looking everywhere but Akira.

“And?” When he looked up to make out her expression, he only saw shadow.

“He apologized," she said, looking up at the moon before pulling off her red backpack and walking down the cement hill until she was level with Akira. Making sure it was still in the light, she shined a square piece of glass in his direction, "He made this for me, too.” She crouched down as he walked closer, and he took the item in his hands, only noticing then that it was attached to the backpack.

“He made this?” The bag charm was a glass encased mixed media piece about ten centimeters tall with gold leaf and pressed flowers over water-colored paper. The glass had actually been sauntered together with a copper frame. He'd never seen anything like it from Yusuke before. The artist had probably grown in ways he'd never expected. He imagined Yusuke choosing the flowers and paper, splurging on the highest quality to go another week without food. Did Yusuke still ascribe to the starved artist stereotype?

“Yeah. It’s pretty, right?” she leaned over to admire it with him, careful not to block the light.

“I didn’t know he made things like this.” Akira remarked, turning it over in his hands to see the back where he'd signed it in perfect calligraphy. Damn. Even he was a little jealous: no one had ever made him something so nice. The closest he’d come was when Goro had tried to cook him katsudon for his birthday one year and had gone overboard on the meat tenderizing. Too much love could hurt, and in that case, make pork taste like day-old tuna.

“Me neither," she let him take the bag along with the keychain, so that he could examine it more closely.

Akira tried to recall what he’d learned all of those years ago when he’d worked in the lower levels of Shibuya station at the flower shop. One was obvious; lavender was common. But, the second flower, he had trouble identifying, so he guessed. Hopefully there wouldn’t be a quiz later. "I think it's violet and lavender?"

“You can tell?" she couldn’t hide the surprise in her voice, and it made him puff his chest a bit. He could still impress Futaba? There was hope for him yet.

"Yeah, I think so.” He dropped the keychain so that it fell heavily against the bag, and handed the backpack back to her, capturing her eyes as he added, “They mean honesty and faith?"

"I think . . .” she reached backward and adjusted the backpack straps on her shoulders. She’d trailed off, and when their eyes met again, she laughed awkwardly, “No, I think I’m wrong.”

“Tell me,” he smiled at her. Nineteen-year-old Futaba was never shy, so it was something of a novelty to see her that way. 

“I think he wants me to have a piece of him wherever I go. Like, when it’s something I can carry with me, I can be reminded of him. Paintings aren’t really like that inherently, so he made this for me especially.”

Was this really happening? This was never a ship he’d seen coming. It wasn’t that he’d discourage it from setting sail; he just wasn’t sure he was on board. “I can talk to him about it,” he promised without having any idea on how he’d make good on it.

“You should be doing that anyway, jerk,” she snipped in mock annoyance.

“Right, right,” it was his turn to toe at the cement, “as a good big brother.” He regretted the words even as he said them; he totally didn’t deserve the title, but neither did the other guy. It was better to have a shitty brother than no brother, right? Being an only child, he wondered if that were true.

“Yeah . . .” she stood up, steadying herself on the slope, and adjusted her backpack straps again so that it hung low at the small of her back.

“You look happy,” he commented, noticing quite suddenly that the Futaba he’d met here had been more bitter and pained than anything else. Yusuke’s kindness had clearly sweetened her mood.

“I’ve missed you.” she admitted, her voice cracking on the last word.

“I’ve missed you, too.” he admitted. Her admission made his heart lighter. It had been some time since anyone had said that. He remembered that in the beginning, Goro would say it a lot. He’d remind him that they’d seen each other that morning, and Goro would pout and say, ‘ _ I’m allowed to miss you no matter how much time has passed. _ ’

“Remember when we all went to Shinjuku park for ohanami and Ryuji ate that wasabi flower thinking it was frosting?” Futaba interrupted his reverie with a non-sequitur he hadn’t quite prepared for, so he watched her smile spread until she began to laugh seemingly at the memory.

Akira choked laughter through his teeth, “Oh yeah, of course. That was hilarious.” He hadn't been there, so mimicking her would be his best bet if he wanted to make it down memory lane without getting hit by a truck or killed by a bus.

"And Ann turned Makoto into a tomato after kissing her in front of all of us?" Futaba was still laughing, but she jumped off of the cement hill and landed beside him, her head bowed as she did. He couldn’t see her expression so he mimicked her body language. 

"Yeah," his teeth grit with the lie, a shaky smile on his face. Ann did what?

"And Yusuke tried doing that abstract cherry-blossom painting that ended up looking like a Sudowoodo?! You and I couldn't stop laughing and after we showed the others, like, no one could unsee it?"

"I remember, yeah."

She rubbed at her eyes behind her glasses, "And Mona, like, shamelessly visited all of the families for free sashimi? Like, we had plenty. He was sick for like a week."

He mimicked her fondness, remembering instead the people he’d lost, "I remember. That was really nice."

“It was so good. It was my happiest memory of my senior year,” her hands covered her face, and all Akira could do was watch.

“Yeah?”

“Kana and her family live in Osaka now.” 

“Oh, your friend right?” He vaguely remembered helping Futaba with someone named Kana. They’d changed the heart of her parents or something. It was four years ago; he couldn’t be blamed for not remembering the details. 

“ . . . Sure.” 

So, that had been wrong; something had clearly happened between them, and regardless of whether they were friends in the past, they weren’t friends now.

“You two still keep in touch?” he asked.

“How could we?” her voice reminded him of sand, hot, dry heat, and a tomb.

“Right . . .” he said carefully.

“Hahha, you, are you serious?” her hands finally fell from her face to reveal red, wet eyes, “You’re the only one who knows.”

Seeing Futaba now was like watching a sad Pixar film four-fifths of the way through. It was a science. Any Pixar film would pretty much break your fucking heart if it ended right before the last fifth of the movie and usually with whatever hero ending up fucking alone after realizing he or she had fucked up beyond repair. “What did I say?” A scratch on the fucking disc kept the rest of the thing from playing. Movie ends with the protagonist realizing how much of a failure they are. “Sorry Futaba, I know it was difficult reconnecting with her before.”

She choked, her eyes going wide either in shock from his words or her failing lunges, “Oh my god, you-- you--”

“Futaba?”

“Don’t touch me.”

He recoiled suddenly, having no recollection that he had been reaching for her at all. “Futaba?”

“Leave.” Even her shadow, a ghost in a tomb of a girl twice dead, had not spoken to him like this. 

“I can’t leave--you’re--” Crying. He’d made her cry. He’d brought her pain. He’d managed to do the one thing he’d set out not to do aside from getting caught in his lie.

“Mona never did that!” she stepped back when her volume doubled, “Mona wasn't there because the two of you had just gotten into a big fight. And Kana she-- Leave! Leave! Please leave!”

Okay, wow. Scratch that. He’d met her only twice, and he’d made her cry and she’d figured out he wasn’t who he pretended to be. 

_ Fuck. _

“Leave me alone, please, please, I can’t even . . .” her breath must have caught in her lunges again because she stopped speaking or even moving. For a few heavy seconds, she held his gaze and saw through him like sticky rice paper--transparent and best avoided. “I can’t even look at you. I wish I could just . . . delete the save file!”

He’s stepped back at some point, and even with meters between them, she still looked sick from here, disgusted by his presence, his very existence. At this point, all he could do was grant her wish.

No happy ending here.

“I’m sorry.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

_ Rocked by the ocean, the ship groaned with the waves that carried it across the sea of the Tokyo Skyline. From inside, the alarm rang out, and a metal wall between him and a voice he knew he’d die for rose up to seperate them forever. _

_ “I want you to promise me something else, too.” He was holding a gun, pointed directly at a man that shared his face. _

_ “Anything,” promised the voice from the other side. Even the alarm went quiet with its deep cadence, a hundred other words, poetry, and song tied to the hushed word the voice spoke. _

_ “Remember me as I was when we were together?” he implored, knowing full well that his own words carried only a surrender to the fate he knew he’d been tied to since the day his mother died.  _

_ “Goro!” _

_ “Please,” he did not let his voice beg because he knew that single word would burn quite enough, “Promise you won’t forget who I am.”  _

_ His doppleganger released the safety on its gun, grinning too wide a smile to be human, eyes stretched and narrowed into something grotesque. _

_ “Goro! No! No, please! Don’t-! You can’t! Please!” _

_ Who would have thought that that smooth, polished stone of a voice could ever be sharp? Gritty and desperate with hopelessness crying out in such an open display of hardened fear-- the kind that stayed with you always, that sank inside you and weighed you down? _

_ Who would have thought he could sound like that? _

_ The one he meant to kill could never be him-- too empty, too dead, all passions for revenge, for self-preservation, for justice existed nowhere inside his copy. The nightmare version of him was transient, and it would disappear along with him. _

_ “Goodbye.” _

 

Goro opened his eyes to see the TV playing another re-run of some j-drama he had no interest in. He sat up, and the movement startled Akira awake. In a second, Akira had gone from panicked to relieved to affectionate as he pulled Goro closer to sit beside him on the couch. What a mess.

“Can you turn it off?”

He’d come home; he knew where he’d find the answers. It was just a matter of whether or not  Akira would give them to him. He'd entered the apartment with Akira's promise that they'd talk, and he'd stayed out of the necessity of a warm meal and a place to sleep. Akira had been right on that part; Goro had no friends he could stay with, and he'd been sleeping in a hotel for the better part of two weeks aside from the night before when he’d fallen asleep in Ren’s arms in his dorm. If he were being honest with himself, it was the guilt of what had happened with Ren that had driven him to stay when Akira told him to  _ have patience _ . But now, that patience had worn out. It was time for Goro to get the answers he needed, no, the ones he deserved.

Once the TV was off, Goro turned out of Akira’s grasp so that they could speak face-to-face. “Do you remember what I said before I  . . . before you thought I died?”

“Yes,” Akira‘s eyes wandered around the room before traveling back to him, “Goro, do you remember?”

“What did you promise me?” Goro asked. He'd had the dream before, but not with so much detail; it had never been quite so real. He wasn't sure why it had taken color now, but he'd gamble on the idea that Ren had something to do with it.

“I would steal Masayoshi Shido's heart."

He felt Akira's eyes studying him, even after he looked away to study his fingernails as if they suddenly needed all of his attention. What Akira said didn't match his dream. It never had. But this time, the clarity of the conversation remained; it wasn't just a dream. This time, Goro was sure it was a memory . . . one that Akira had not been a part of.   
How?

Akira reached for his hands, intertwining their fingers together before asking, “Were you expecting something else?”

“No, not at all,” Goro said too quickly, pulling his hands away, smiling fakely as if to openly admit his lie. He wasn't the best at hiding the truth at the moment, but the shock was beginning to settle in and make its home inside his muscles. He couldn't keep his eyes from straying, his hands from trembling, or his shoulders from tensing.

“Why are you bringing that up all of a sudden?” Akira asked, clearly skeptical of Goro's honesty and displeased from his service-industry smile.

“I just . . ." he dared look up at him, and when their eyes met, he saw that they shared equal portions of unnamed guilt, "It’s not that I’m ungrateful for the life I have with you now.”

“I love you.”

Goro's eyes widened, knowing that of anything that Akira could have said, that had to be the most honest. “I know,” he replied.

“I’m glad you came back,” Akira tried again to reach for his hands, but this time Goro was too swift in his retreat.

“About that . . .”

“Wait--” Akira put his hand up to silence him, a grin spreading on his face as he removed his t-shirt, his undershirt left loose straps over his muscles. He moved back into the corner of the couch, unbuttoned his jeans, and pulled his legs up onto the cushions. He parted his lips and hooded his eyes, pausing in that position to gauge Goro's reaction. “Okay, now."

Goro sighed.

"No wait--” Akira turned in the cushions, sending his feet over the edge of the back of the couch and letting his head hang back with the full dramatics of a woman betrayed hand to forehead and all that jazz. “Ok, shoot.”

Goro blinked.

"Hold up," Akira sat up again and removed his undershirt, letting it fall on top of his other shirt on the floor. On his knees on the couch, he flexed his muscles and licked his lips. "Okay, babe."

Goro rolled his eyes.

"Wait, this is better--" Akira fell to his stomach on the couch, crossed his ankles with his feet behind him, knees bent, and rested his chin in his hands, winking cutely before saying, "Full and undivided attention."

Goro smiled and shook his head, sighing out all of his amusement to make space for the challenging conversation that lie ahead. “Aki, I can’t keep doing this. As much as we care for each other, we keep hurting one another. You have to tell me the truth.”

Akira sat up a final time, facing Goro on the couch with his feet pulled in close to him, “I . . . it won’t help . . . hearing it.”

Goro couldn't accept that, and he knew that Akira would take some coaxing, but he wasn't entirely prepared for what he knew he had to do.

The only way to get Akira to trust him with the truth would be to do the same for him. They were both liars. They were both thieves. They shared so many qualities and yet, their communication had become so poor and convoluted that Goro felt they were barely speaking the same language at times.

He'd have to set an example and damn the consequences.

“In the beginning," he captured Akira's attention and held it, unblinking, "you were all I had." Goro hated looking back on that time. Helpless. Weak. Dependent. He'd been nothing more than a shell of a person, too scared to go out for fear of losing what was left of himself in the crowded streets and winding alleyways of the city. He’d stayed in the hospital longer than he should have, and had been difficult, for a time, with his physical therapy. And then, after leaving the hospital, having nowhere else to go, he’d moved in with Akira. "Aside from the internet, I had nothing, no one. I had no way of identifying myself in relation to anyone or anything else— but  _ you _ ." Even now it sounded like some dark dream, a reality he'd experienced only in the pages of a horror novel, something harrowing, confusing, and tragic that he could pick up and set down at any time. To others, people might see it as an uplifting tale of overcoming trials that life thrusts on you unexpectedly, but to him, any story in which he was vulnerable was a terrifying one. "You were all I could trust and Aki, I-I always knew there was a chance that you were dishonest, that you weren’t telling me everything, that I couldn’t rely solely on you to lay the foundation for who I was— for my very identity, for my life." Goro took a deep breath and released it slowly, "But, I trusted you anyway. Do you know why?”

Akira shook his head, but he didn't look away.

“Even if I didn’t know who I was, who to trust, or who to turn to, I knew that you, however much of a stranger you were to me, you loved me. I could see it and I could feel it and—" Goro finally looked away. This was it, the part where he had to be honest. "Akira, I knew that it wouldn’t sustain me. Back then," Goro stopped when he looked up again, seeing now that his lover had gone still. Akira hadn't always been this delicate; he wasn't sure when things had changed. "I knew your love and my trust in the love you felt for me wouldn’t be enough. It wouldn’t be enough to keep me going if I never regained my memories because no matter what you did in the name of love, no matter your good intentions, the truth would always be there waiting for me.”

“But--” he tried to interrupt, and Goro waited several seconds before he realized that Akira didn't know what to say next despite his attempt to intercede.

So, he went on, “Aki, I know you’ve sacrificed. I know that you went into hiding with me." That's what Akira had told him, anyway. They would ‘start a new life together’. But, Goro had never really had a say in the matter, not really. The decision Akira had made for himself, for his life, had been made while Goro had been unconscious. By the time he'd come to, apparently everything had already been settled. Akira couldn't go back without risking both of them. Still, there were times, moments, when Goro knew Akira wanted to. He regretted his decision. He regretted Goro. He regretted the life they'd built separate from his past. "But, that was your choice. I know you regret it now— maybe even since the beginning. And, and whether you realize it or not, I know you blame me for it . . . to some extent.”

Akira reached for him, “Goro, no, I—“

“I’m not finished,” he took a deep breath and released it, putting up a hand to keep Akira from closing in around him, “And you do, but— you don’t mean to.”

Akira receded inside himself and said nothing more.

“Aki, I need to know the truth." That had been too vague. Goro tried again, "No, you don’t have to tell me everything, but you can’t lie anymore about the past. You can’t lie about--" he struggled because despite all of the evidence for his suspicions, he couldn't bring himself to say it, "I can’t go on living my life with so many missing pieces and you— you can’t go on holding all of these secrets. You can’t continue to lie.”

“I can’t lose you, Goro. I— whatever I have to—“

“No.” he replied automatically, the words he'd heard before echoing like a death knell, “No, absolutely not.” They were bells warning of the time the reaper would come to take him. Should he have heard instead, the sound of chains? “I’ll go. If it goes on like this, I’ll leave. I’ll disappear. You’re only going to keep me here if you come clean with me.”

Akira visibly swallowed back his protests, “Go ahead.”

“You’ve said so many times the term ‘bad things’ when referencing mistakes I’ve made in the past— when discussing why you and I could not return to our lives prior to what we began together four years ago. Tell me now: what bad things did I do?”  It was enough to warrant a slap and revoked crepe privileges. According the Thieves he’d met earlier that week, Ren’s friends, it was enough to go to prison for.

“I love you,” Akira tried a second time.

Goro shook his head, wondering if he'd all but broken Akira in his absence, “I know, Aki, I love you too, and that’s why we’re here," Goro finally reached for Akira's hands and pressed his thumbs into his palms, rubbing in circles to ebb away at his lover’s rebellious nature. Akira didn’t pull away, but he did close his eyes, and as Goro went on, rubbing at Akira's fingers, Akira finally leaned his forehead against his shoulder in surrender. “Because of what you and I have built together, we’re having this difficult conversation. I wouldn’t have come back if I didn’t want this to work.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. He wanted Akira to change, but he always regretted hurting him. And while he did still love Akira very much, meeting Ren had shown him there was so much more to their relationship, and, perhaps, once the truth was made known, he’d no longer be able to forgive him. Or maybe, even himself.

This wasn’t about finding a way to be with Ren; this was about finding a way to forgive Akira.

Akira didn’t pull away, but his hands turned to grasp Goro’s, and even as Goro attempted to rub away his fears and stress, Akira’s grip continued to tighten around his fingers until moving his were no longer possible.

“Tell me what I did.”

Akira, his eyes flailing wildly as they stared down at the worn couch cushions, sat up again without letting go of Goro’s hands, "You killed people.”

Goro had known all this time it had been 'bad' in Akira's words. He'd known that whatever it was, it was a punishable offense by law and that his actions had hurt others, but murder couldn't be described as a bad thing or even a punishable thing. Murder was something unforgivable. Murder meant stealing life and changing every life connected to the stolen one in an instant. Murder couldn't be reconciled.

He was a murderer.

People?

He'd killed more than once.

And worse, he knew it was true. 

Akira’s words filled him with a mixture of horror and relief; he knew the truth now, but with it, he was left with consequences that were impossible to escape.

“Those you didn’t kill, you drove crazy temporarily, which either led to their deaths or the deaths of others or sometimes both.” Akira still couldn’t lift his head to look Goro in the eyes. “You know the ‘mental shutdown cases’?”

This was real.

He knew it in his bones, muscle, and sinew.

He was a killer. 

He felt nails digging into his skin.

“Yes, from old interviews on YouTube and the like.” He’d watched everything he could find on himself during those first few nightmarish months.

“Those were all you,” Akira said lowly, his voice deep and dark.

“Me.” Akira must have understood it wasn’t a question because he waited for Goro to speak again. “I was investigating my own crimes?” He could feel his eyes drying out, his vision blurring. If Akira looked up, Goro wouldn’t even be able to tell at this point.

“Yes,” he heard Akira whisper as a weight was lifted from his shoulder.

“Knowingly?” His nose itched, and water began to pool at the edges of his vision. 

“Yes.”

He blinked, and the first tears fell, “How many people did I kill?" He gasped for air, blinking away the tears to keep himself from breaking out in a sob, "How many lives were lost as a direct result of my actions?”

Akira reached for him, arms wrapping around him as his body weight shifted against him, “I don’t know. I honestly don’t. I don’t think even now it would be possible to tell.”

“Tens? Hundreds?” he choked.

“Not hundreds?”

“You don’t sound sure.” He almost laughed.

“Not hundreds,” Akira pulled away to look at him, but Goro still couldn’t see much through the tears, “Goro, the people that died were corrupt.”

But Akira wasn’t corrupt, was he? Or had he been? Or Ren? Had Ren been corrupt? Who had he shot back then? Why had he shot Ren if Ren wasn’t corrupt?

No, what did it matter? Murder was unforgivable no matter who it was it was, right? It made people suffer it--

No, he didn’t believe that. That would be the  _ right _ thing to believe, but even now, without the memories, he didn’t believe  _ that _ .

Some people were just bad . . . to their very core. Some deaths benefitted good people,  _ saved _ good people, even.

“But I didn’t murder them because I honestly thought I was doing something good, did I?” he asked as if continuing the struggle in his mind aloud. He shouldn’t have asked, though, because he already knew the answer. He already knew.

“No . . .”

“Was it true?” He remembered the promises. He had at least that memory that he thought he understood, that he thought was real. “What you said about how you thought I’d died?” he clarified, “That I sacrificed myself?”

“For me. For the Phantom Thieves, yes.” Akira’s tone shifted, nervousness lifted as he spoke confidently, pronouncing each word for emphasis “Goro, you’re not a bad person. You know you’re not a bad person.”

No, he didn't know that. Not anymore. He’d never actually known that. Waking up at eighteen without a family or friends or history? He’d never been sure of a lot of things.

“Tell me you know that,” Akira insisted.

Goro shook his head for several seconds, struggling to form words on his lips. “What truly distinguishes a bad person from a good person who does bad things?" he asked, "Is it not one’s bad actions that identify someone as bad?”

“Please don’t do this right now.”

Goro hung his head, collecting thoughts like trash, separating them into separate piles to be handled on Mondays, Wednesdays, and every other Friday. “So what did  _ you  _ do?” 

He couldn’t handle his own unknown history right now. He had to know Akira’s.

“What do you mean?”

Goro noticed Akira's tightened grip on his arms, but he pressed anyway, “Your job. The children. All of the people you risk your life to help? I know it isn’t only for the adrenaline or the rush of what you had in the metaverse. It’s not for me, either. . . . It’s something else. I’ve always thought you were trying to reconcile or redeem yourself. What are you seeking redemption for? Aki, what did you do?”   
Was it loving him?   
Forgiving him? A murderer?   
Choosing a murderer over his past life?   
Were all of Akira’s regrets really just his fault?

Did all of Akira’s sin come from Goro’s own mistakes?

“Something I-- something I can’t take back.” He stared at the couch again, unable to meet Goro’s eyes.

“Tell me the truth, Aki,” Goro whispered, already hearing in his mind what he’d been thus far led to believe with every argument, every sacrifice, every longing expression Akira gave empty space when he thought Goro wasn’t looking. “Would it be something I would kill you for?” He bit his own lip before asking, “Or something you regret not killing me for?”

“. . . . I’m sorry.”

“I have no power here.”

Akira created even more distance between them, “I’m sorry, Goro. I--what I did wasn’t for you. It wasn’t. It was for me because I wanted to be with you. I couldn’t be with you. It was impossible, so I did what I did because it was the only way to be reunited with you. I was selfish.”

“But you can’t tell me what that is?” It would be better if he did. Akira had to know that. It would be better for both of them because right now, everything sounded like Goro’s fault. Goro looked down to see Akira’s hands shaking, one gripping the other in an attempt to calm down. He had to swallow back a plea for more. “Ok, ok, ok, this is already progress tonight,” he put his own hands over his lover’s in an attempt to still the shaking, “I just couldn’t continue living in so many lies.”

“I’m sorry,” Akira repeated.

“You will have to tell me, but not right now. That’s fine.”

Akira reached for him, and Goro let him. Feeling nothing but gentle love in the embrace, Goro let himself be pulled down into the cushions of the couch so that Akira could bury himself inside him.

“Can I ask you just one question?”

Goro nodded, knowing Akira would feel it.

“Are your memories returning?”

“ . . . I think so.” It would do nothing to lie about that. Though Akira never wanted it to happen, Goro hadn’t been the most subtle in his questions as of late.

“Why?” Akira asked after a long period of silence between them.

“You said one question,” Goro replied, but then, to prevent himself from sounding suspicious, added, “Also, how could I know why? Didn’t the doctor say it could be random?”

“Yeah, but what if you--”

“What if I what?” It would be impossible for Akira to know about Ren; he’d been too careful.

_ Unless. _

Unless he already knew . . . unless Akira knew there was someone identical to him in this city and he’d been hiding Ren from him all this time.

“Nevermind.”

Goro didn’t like that he couldn’t see Akira’s face, so he moved out of the embrace to turn and face him, ““I’m not going anywhere, ok?” He wished he felt more in his own words. At this point, he wasn’t sure what to feel or what to think especially in regard to where he  _ belonged _ .

“I’d do anything for you,” Akira inisted, gray eyes shining hopeful and desperate.

They looked so familiar.

“I know.”

“If it would make you happy,” he stipulated.

Goro tried not to frown, his whole body suddenly heavy with exhaustion, “. . . I know.”

Too familiar.

He’d heard it all before . . . from both of them now.

_ How could not one, but two people, love a murderer? _

“Hurting you is the last thing I want.”

“I know, Aki, I know.” Inside, he screamed, but in their apartment, on their couch, he ran his fingers through Akira’s hair and kissed the hands that knew him best.

“Please don’t leave again.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re my favorite.”

“Your favorite what?”

“Everything.”

“How poetic,” he tried smiling, and realized it was easier than he’d thought. 

“You arrre,” Akira tried, too, before resorting to begging once more, “Please stay.”

“I’ll stay,” because he no longer knew where home was at present, but he was beginning to realize that for him, that had always been the norm.

 

* * *

 

Akira had enough evidence at this point to be suspicious of the lesser version of himself. Goro’s words and actions had been one thing, but what Futaba had said was another. And, there was the question of whether or not the other confidants were catching on: Iwai had sent him a strange text about his name, Chihaya had cautioned him to be careful, and Tae, well, he’d fucked up when he’d thought he could get away with visiting her. So, here he was outside the coffeeshop he’d wandered by in the early hours of mornings during which the past haunted him into submission for just a glance, and a momentary sniff, and the near-death experience of walking down memory lane.

He opened the door a few minutes before 22:00 hours to find him face to face with . . . himself.

“You,” was all the idiot copy could say as he stared back at him with wide eyes behind unnecessarily large glasses.

Akira pushed his way in, kicking the door closed behind him as he tackled his copy to the floor, making quick work of the barista by pinning him to the floor with his knees over his arms. The barista didn’t struggle long, quickly out-maneuvered and overpowered by his lookalike. Akira would have been impressed with himself had he not been fighting someone so damn weak. A battle of muscle versus literally none was not a well-earned victory; it was practically bullying. When the weakling finally stopped trying to escape his hold, Akira reached down and pulled off the fake glasses. 

The same. He really was looking in the mirror. A living, breathing, reflection of himself glared back at him with eyes that could lead a revolution; Akira would know, of course.

“Stay away from Goro.” Akira threatened.

“No.” 

The single word had been spoken with not a millisecond of hesitation. All chub and stubbornness about this one. 

After tossing the glasses out of the way, Akira pulled out the knife hidden strapped to his back. The silver blade reflected the yellow light from Leblanc’s pendants over the bar. He put the knife to his copy’s throat, an unspoken threat as he pressed close enough to just barely break skin. 

His copy managed to remain expressionless even as he spoke through clenched teeth, “There’s only one way to get rid of a doppelganger.”

Akira nearly laughed, but choked it back in a scoff, “Doppelganger?” He couldn’t help but smirk, “I guess that fits.” He pressed harder him, “You’re threatening me when I’m the one holding the knife?”

“You’re the one that doesn’t belong here.” The barista smirked only a split second before converting his face into a blank slate once more, “And I don’t need a knife to threaten you.”

Akira frowned at the person he’d never met who seemed to know exactly how to turn his screws.

Fuck this cocky bastard.

“You don’t know that,” his eyes narrowed, “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I do.” There it was again: zero hesitation. How could his copy, the loser loner who treated his friends like garbage and his future like a death sentence, lay there beneath him and so confidently threaten everything Akira had built in the last four years?

Akira mimicked the copy, clearing his own face of emotion as easily as the next shapeshifter, “I know where you live, where you go to school, your work, the hours of your classes, and the names and locations of every single one of your confidants.”

The barista smiled, relaxing in a cat-like stretch beneath the blade, “You wouldn’t touch any of them.”

“Oh, really?” Akira raised an eyebrow.

“Because you think they’re  _ yours _ ,” the copy went on, “You think they’re _ your _ friends. You think the thieves,  _ my _ family, is  _ your _ family. You think Goro belongs with  _ you _ .”

And, there it was.

He’d fucked up somewhere along the way. Again. Amamiya Ren had met with Goro or the other way around . . . either way. He had no idea when or how long or how  _ much _ . Akira had gotten too comfortable; he’d stopped paying attention to his copy because he’d become too complacent with his life and his relationship with Goro. 

He’d taken everything for granted.

This was his doing, but it wasn’t too late to fix it. Even if Goro had met Amamiya Ren, Goro had come home to him. “He does belong with me, which is why you’re going to  _ leave him alone _ .”

Instead of speaking, the copy looked up at him with a smirk just cocky enough to warrant a spark of anger within Akira. At the other end of a knife, where the fuck did he get off?! Akira didn’t let his anger show, but kept his grip firm, “He’s happy with me. I’ve kept him happy, even without his memories. He doesn’t want to go back there. You represent the past he doesn’t want to return to.”

“You’re confused,” Amamiya Ren dismissed him with an air that Akira wouldn’t have thought him capable of had he not possessed the knowledge that they were technically the same person.

“I’m warning you.”

Their eyes met, reflecting smoke and mirrors and tantamount transparency. The first to look away would lose. Akira pressed the knife further and, with a breath from his lookalike, drew blood. He stood up suddenly, pocketing the knife with a flip of his wrist. He turned, silent in his escape because the message had already been said, but as he shut the door behind him, he felt a piercing pain in his shoulder. 

“What the hell?!”

The door to Leblanc was slammed closed and locked as he reached around to his back to remove what had pierced his skin. In his hand was a solid, weighted dart sharp enough to kill. “Fuck.” He threw it the ground, knowing full well that this was Amamiya’s declaration of war. 

The next time they met, it was kill or be killed.   
  


* * *

 

**Queen:** I’m not sure how to go about saying this, but Ann and I discovered something today.

**CloverGirl:** Goro is alive.

**CaptainKitto:** wut

**BishoujoKaito:** That can’t be right.

**Queen:** that’s one way of doing it.

**4theaesthetic:** how shocking

**BishoujoKaito:** You’re absolutely sure it was him?

**CloverGirl:** like 100% omg like he’s like fine

**Queen:** she means uninjured

**Ann:** he’s fine, too, like he looks gay af but hes hot

**Queen:** (￢_￢)

**CaptainKitto:** wtf

**BishoujoKaito:** Where has he been all of this time?

**Queen:** here? In Tokyo?

**CloverGirl:** guys he has amnesia

**4theaesthetic:** that explains quite a bit

**CaptainKitto:** haru you think Ren was talking about akechi when he visited u

**BishoujoKaito:** That may very well be the case.

**CaptainKitto:** damn

**CloverGirl:** omg i didn’t even think of that but ur right

**Queen:** He did mention that he knew Ren.

**BishoujoKaito:** This is a lot to take in.

**CloverGirl:** i got his line id so we’re going to meet up with him

**BishoujoKaito:** It’s best we don’t all go and overwhelm him, but I do wish I could be there.

**Queen:** I could start a call on my phone and leave it on

**CaptainKitto:** classic

**CloverGirl:** ahh perfect

**CloverGirl:** haha though you already slapped him so i he catches us it isnt much worse

**CaptainKitto:** you slapped him??!!??!

**Queen:** yes

**CloverGirl:** yeah she did

**CaptainKitto:** damn i wish id been there

**BishoujoKaito:** Even though he has amnesia?

**Queen:** I didn’t realize that part yet

**Queen:** I don’t feel great about it

**CaptainKitto:** karmas a bitch

**CloverGirl:** true

**4theaesthetic:** It’s hard to fathom he’s been alive all of this time

**4theaesthetic:** and here in Tokyo right under our noses

**BishoujoKaito:** Ren has been mourning the loss of someone who never left.

**BishoujoKaito:** I mean, not technically…

**CaptainKitto:** thats heavy

**Queen:** we can all agree that this is good for Ren though right?

**CloverGirl:** yeah!

**BishoujoKaito:** I’m not sure.

**CaptainKitto:** me either tbh

**4theaesthetic:** we’ll have to see

**CloverGirl:** wow, ok guys

**BishoujoKaito:** I don’t mean to play devil’s advocate, but I do think it’s too early to tell.

**Queen:** That’s fair

**Queen:** We’ll keep you updated.

**4theaesthetic:** I’m curious to hear your thoughts, Futaba.

**4theaesthetic:** ┐(￣ヘ￣;)┌

**CaptainKitto:** i dont think she’s gonna show tonight

**4theaesthetic:** 且_(・_・ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading all of Part 1 of _Forgiving the Ghost_! Concrit welcome to strengthen the story moving forward~ About 20,000 words have been written for the rest of the story, but it's still a very rough draft. To prevent long wait time between chapters, I will likely just post the parts altogether as I did this one.   
> Thanks again!

**Author's Note:**

> Jade did amazing art for the first and fifth chapter! Please like and follow her work [here on twitter](https://twitter.com/jadedsiti/status/1100753611632439298) and [here on tumblr](https://jadeandblood.tumblr.com/post/183093744280/im-doing-my-part-in-persona-5-big-bang-here-are). I'm so proud to have worked with her; she is wonderful! You can also [read her fanfiction here](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jelaine_The_First/pseuds/Jelaine_The_First).  
> Music completed a promotional/concept art for the fic you can maybe see one day, so a big shout out to Music!
> 
>  
> 
> The title of this fic and its series comes from a Bishop Briggs lyric from the song Hi-Lo (Hollow). Her music was inspiration for the entire series.  
> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you can enjoy where it goes~ Any feedback is much much appreciated~


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